


Supergirl Returns

by kellsbells



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: But it will have an impact, But sort of major, Don't say I didn't warn you, F/F, Hard to say exactly, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-08-08 00:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16419302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellsbells/pseuds/kellsbells
Summary: After the Daxamites leave Earth, Kara hears about a colony of Kryptonians in the Starhaven system, and feels duty-bound to find them and offer them any help she can. This is the story of what happened when she left, and the changed planet - and changed life - that she returned to.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you following my other stories, worry not - I am still working on them and will be posting as and when I can. This particular story weighs in at 60 thousand words so far, and still isn't finished, so I have plenty of chapters to post before I will need to write anything more on this. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

_March 2022_

 

Kara stretched in the confines of the tiny ship, muscles flexing and joints popping.  She’d spent the majority of the last few months inside this tiny tin can. She’d traded her cousin’s escape pod – with his permission – for this piece of crap five years ago, following whispers of Kryptonian survivors on a planet near Starhaven.

 

“Are you sure about this, Kal?” Kara had asked, when Kal agreed immediately to allow her to sell his pod.

 

“I have everything they sent with me, Kara. This is just… the thing that brought me here. I understand that you have an emotional attachment to yours, so it’ll still be here when you come back. For now, I have the Fortress and the AIs, and we can stay in touch until you’re out of range. You’re my link to our people now, so just make sure you come back safe, cousin,” he said, smiling his ‘magazine cover’ smile. She smiled back, despite herself.

 

“Thank you, Kal-El. I’ll come back as soon as I can,” she promised.

 

“Khao-shuh,” he said, grasping her forearm. She returned the gesture, smiling.

 

That was five years ago. Two years of searching, and then three years of pain from what she’d found. She blinked back tears. She was almost in Sol’s light, and that meant no more pain, which she’d be more than glad to say goodbye to. She just hoped her injuries would heal. They were extensive.

 

She placed a call to Earth, to the DEO, and was delighted when J’onn’s face came up on the viewscreen.

 

“Supergirl! It’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said, with a broad grin. He looked great. Healthy and happy. She wondered how his life had been in her absence.

 

She bit back a squeal of delight, and just smiled.

 

“J’onn, you have no idea how glad I am to see your face,” she breathed, in complete relief. Perhaps now she could put this all behind her, maybe make a real life for herself now that the shadow of Krypton was no longer looming over her.

 

“Likewise, Kara Zor-El. Are you coming home?” he asked, sounding a little wistful.

 

“If Earth is prepared to accept me, yes,” Kara said, nodding.

 

J’onn nodded.

 

“Things have changed a little around here, Kara. You’ll see, once you’re back. For now, please arrive at these co-ordinates before you make any attempt at landing on Earth,” he said, pressing a few buttons in front of him. He was sending her co-ordinates of something in Earth orbit, from what she could tell. Which was confusing, because there had only been one space station orbiting the Earth when she left. Of course, a lot could change in five years.

 

She talked to J’onn for another minute, until she could tell that she really was keeping him back from his work, and then she signed off, checking the autopilot and going to lie on the tiny bunk. Only 2 more days. 2 more days, and she’d be home.

 

She started to grow stronger as she passed the tiny planetoids just before Pluto, and to her relief some of the pain in her joints started to ease off. She’d always been proud of her world and its focus on science, but she’d never thought that she would be on the receiving end of that scientific knowledge being used for harm.  

 

She thoroughly enjoyed the last day of her journey, passing through the asteroid field and the colourful planets of the solar system, and bathing in Sol’s light the whole time. She wasn’t healed – that would take a lot more prolonged contact with the sun, given the extent of her injuries and scarring – but she felt much more like her old self.

 

She confirmed with J’onn one last time that she was heading for the space station, and he nodded gravely.

 

“Supergirl, remember. Things have changed. Do not make any threatening actions or even so much as raise your voice to those on the station. They are a safety precaution, and a necessary one, unfortunately. With any luck we’ll see you in the next 48 hours.”

 

Kara nodded. J’onn had warned her on more than one occasion not to make any ‘false moves’ as they used to say in old Western movies. What was she walking into?

 

She packed up her belongings and washed, dressing in a bodysuit much like the one her Aunt Astra had worn on earth. Kara’s was dark blue with the El crest over her left breast in red and gold. She messed with her hair and face for a while before deciding that she looked as good as she was going to, in the circumstances. Now it was time to face the music.

 

When she gently docked the pod, she switched off all of its systems and moved to the docking port, opening her side and then standing back, hands slightly raised to show she had no weapons. She was stunned at the ferocity of the shouting when the other side opened, voices in Russian and English and Chinese demanding that she get on her knees and lace her fingers behind her head.

 

She kept quiet, allowing them to put handcuffs on her, cuffs that she could have snapped without effort. But she wanted to be co-operative, and so she went along with their demands.

 

She walked, half-dragged, between two huge men who were from somewhere in Eastern Europe, judging from the accents and from the fact that she didn’t recognise their language. She spoke Russian fluently, but their dialect was a little too different for her to pick up right away.

 

She was thrown without ceremony into a featureless cell, her cuffs released so she could be secured to the table. She tested her bonds and shook her head when she realised that they wouldn’t be able to hold her with those.

 

“Kara Zor-El?”

 

A small man with a military haircut and generic military gear came into the room, holding a tablet and frowning at it.

 

Kara held out her hand without thinking, and the handcuffs and the bar holding them to the table exploded into approximately a million pieces.

 

She sat back down, holding her now-free hands up to show she meant no harm.

 

“Crap! I’m really sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve been under a yellow star,” Kara said, apologetically. “If you have any Nth metal cuffs, that should work. You have my word that I mean to co-operate. At least for now,” she said, still holding her hands up.

 

The man looked at her, one eyebrow up. He looked supremely pissed.

 

“It’s fine, Ms Zor-El. Just keep your hands on the tabletop, please,” he said, sighing.

 

“Of course,” Kara said, sitting as still as possible, hands flat on the table in front of her.

 

“Can you just put your finger on this, please?” he asked, and Kara snorted, smiling. It was an L-Corp alien detection device, albeit a little more advanced than the prototype. She put a finger on it gently, and the light, as expected, turned red.

 

“Stay there a moment longer, please,” the man said, when Kara made to move.

 

The device beeped again, and this time a digital readout proclaimed her to be Kryptonian. She wondered how Lena had managed to get it working so that it would identify which particular species the sample was from. It seemed unlikely that the alien community would want to share their DNA with the Luthors, no matter what the cause was.

 

“Okay, Ms Zor-El. Please start from the beginning. You left Earth on 23rd September, 2017. You told your superiors that you were looking for a colony of Kryptonians that you had been told about by an unnamed alien. Is there a reason why you didn’t want to share the alien’s identity?” he asked, eyes narrow.

 

“No, that’s not what that meant, sir. His people don’t have names. They expect you to be able to tell them apart and to know which one you’re speaking to. Which is fine when there are 100 people in your village, but not quite as easy when there are a hundred thousand of you,” Kara said, twisting her fingers together.

 

“Fine. Your intent was to find the Kryptonians and then to return home. Why, then, did it take you five years to return to Earth? Where are the other Kryptonians? And what are your intentions now that you’re here? You could have settled on Starhaven or one of the surrounding planets. What made you return to our planet?”

 

Kara bristled. Earth was every bit as much her planet as it was his. She’d protected it for years, even before coming out as Supergirl. And now they were questioning why she wanted to return?

 

She decided to stick with politeness and honesty for now. If they started making demands that she wouldn’t allow, they would know all about it. She had no desire to end up incarcerated again.

 

“Very well, sir. I heard from a few aliens that there were rumours from the Starhaven system about a group of Kryptonians. No-one knew how many. My family, the House of El, were one of the ruling families on Krypton. I felt it was my duty to find those refugees from my planet and to try to find them a safe home if they needed it. I spoke with my cousin, Kal-El, and asked if I could trade his escape pod for a small ship capable of intergalactic travel. He agreed, and I bought the small ship which is now docked outside.”

 

_10 th September 2017_

 

“Are you sure I’m not getting fleeced here, Maggie?” Kara asked. Maggie had offered to help with the negotiations, because the Ferengi, vile, disgusting little maggots that they were, loved only money and would double-cross a person in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it.

 

“Not 100%, Little D, but Sag here lives on Earth. He’s developed a reputation for being trustworthy – for a Ferengi. If your ship is faulty, chances are he’ll be here to answer for it when you come knocking with those big-ol’ Kryptonian fists of yours. Do me a favour, though? Flex a little, and lift something heavy as soon as it’s remotely feasible to do so. Move the pod, if he asks to look inside. That thing weighs, what? 2 tonnes?”

 

Kara nodded absently, pulling her sleeves up over her shoulders, feigning being too warm. She flexed her biceps and triceps on either side, cracking her powerful neck. The little Ferengi weasel looked up at her nervously. When the time came for him to look at her offer, she picked the pod up between the forefingers and thumbs of each hand and moved it closer to the Ferengi’s desk. From the fear in his eyes, she suspected the ship she was buying was going to be in perfect condition by the time she got it.

 

She’d told most of her family and friends already. Alex still wouldn’t speak to her, despite the fact that she was 3 months pregnant and wouldn’t have been remotely fit to accompany Kara in the first place. Kara knew that Alex would have to let it go soon enough, because she wouldn’t let Kara leave while she was angry.

 

The last person Kara needed to tell was going to be the most difficult. Her best friend, her confidante, the person who’d been there for her without question since they met about a year previous. Lena Luthor.

 

If things had been different, she would have been going to see Lena for very different reasons today, but unfortunately that would have to be off the table, now. Kara had no idea how long she was going to be gone, and she wouldn’t dream of starting a new kind of relationship with Lena in case she never came back.

 

Kara waved a lazy goodbye to Maggie, who’d dropped her at the L-Corp building, and clutched her bag of Chinese food and donuts to her chest. It wasn’t unusual for her to bring food to Lena at any time of day, but today’s food was definitely a peace offering.

 

She was not only going to admit that she’d been lying to Lena for the entire year they’d known each other, but that she was leaving for an indeterminate amount of time to try to find a possible colony of her people on little more than a rumour.

 

Jess nodded at her, as usual, but stopped in the middle of what she was doing.

 

“What did you do?” she asked, voice flat.

 

“What? I didn’t… I haven’t…”

 

“What are you going to do, then, Miss Danvers? I’ve never seen you look quite that guilty before.” Jess crossed her arms and glared.

 

“It’s a long story, Jess, and I can’t tell you much. Just… look after her, when I’m gone, okay?” Kara asked, touching the other woman’s forearm gently. “She’ll need friends, people in her corner.”

 

Jess nodded.

 

“Just… don’t hurt her, Kara. You brought her out of her shell – please don’t drive her back into it, again.”

 

“I can’t make any promises as to how she’ll react, Jess. But I love her and hurting her is the last thing I want,” Kara assured her.

 

Jess nodded.

 

“You can go in, Miss Danvers.”

 

It was a curt dismissal, and it made Kara even more nervous and afraid than she had been. Lena was going to hate her, wasn’t she?

 

“Kara!”

 

Lena stood, her smile wide as always. She looked immaculate, her shirt a deep burgundy and her pencil skirt black and tight. Kara let her eyes linger a little. It was going to be a long time before she saw Lena again, and she didn’t want to forget any detail.

 

“Kara? Are you okay?” Lena asked. She was standing close to Kara, now, her eyes wide and worried.

 

“Yeah, sorry,” Kara said, attempting a smile. “I… um. I have something I need to tell you. Two somethings, actually. Do you have some free time? It made take a while, so I could come back tomorrow or tonight or something if you…”

 

Lena pressed a finger to Kara’s lips.

 

“I have a few hours. I was checking over some budgets but I think they can wait. You look… terrible, Kara. I mean, you’re beautiful as you always are, but you look like someone stole your favourite pizza and gave you back a bunch of kale.”

 

Kara snorted. That probably wasn’t far off her current expression.

 

“Could we… sit?” Kara asked, rubbing at the back of her neck.

 

Lena nodded, stepping backwards gracefully, and they sat in ‘their’ usual places on the couch. Lena set out the food carefully, watching Kara out of the corner of her eye, as if expecting her to bolt.

 

“So, you’re like, a genius, right?” Kara asked, wringing her fingers together.

 

“So they say. My IQ is higher than Einstein’s, but then so was Marilyn Monroe’s,” Lena said, smiling.

 

“So if I say that the first thing I have to tell you involves my sudden disappearances and missing our dinners and lunches at the last minute, you’re not going to tell me you haven’t noticed, are you?”

 

“No,” Lena said, wryly. “But I figured that if it was something you wanted to talk to me about, you would have done so. Does this mean that day has come?”

 

Kara looked at her, heart wrenching. Why hadn’t she told Lena this earlier?

 

“Yes, the day has come,” Kara said.

 

“Okay. So, should I write down my top three guesses, or do you just want to come out and say whatever it is?” Lena joked.

 

Kara looked up at her again, and her eyes were filled with tears.

 

“Okay. Not a time for jokes, I see that now. Come here,” Lena said, pulling Kara to her and squeezing her as tightly as she was able.

 

Kara just managed to hold her sobs at bay, wrapped up in Lena’s arms. For the first time since she’d heard from the nameless alien from Teraj 7 about the Kryptonians near Starhaven, she had doubts about whether she should be taking this journey at all. Was it stupid to give up a possible relationship with someone like Lena, let alone leave all of her friends and family behind, just to chase the ghost of a lost civilisation?

 

“Kara, you’re shaking, sweetheart. You know you don’t owe me any explanations about anything. I’m here for whatever you need.”

 

Kara did sob, then, and Lena let her cry for five minutes or so before she called out to Jess to get her driver to come pick them up at the back entrance to LCorp. She wiped Kara’s face with cool wet wipes, and eventually Kara was calm enough to grab her back and coat and get into the elevator with Lena, this time avoiding Jess’s accusatory glare.

 

Lena asked if Kara wanted to come to her apartment, and Kara agreed. She sent a quick text to J’onn asking if he could cover for her for the evening unless something major came up, and he agreed quickly, texting back an attempt at a kiss emoji that looked more like a winking demon.

 

They arrived at Lena’s penthouse and Lena heated up the food again, encouraging Kara to dig in before they talked again. She poured herself some wine and changed into loose clothing, settling herself patiently next to Kara.

 

Kara filled up on potstickers and a weird but delicious rice dish that was filled with every meat and vegetable imaginable, and topped with a fried egg and sauce. It was odd, but it reminded her very much of a dish from Krypton, and she loved it. When she was finished, she felt much more ready to face the world. Or rather, to face Lena.

 

“I’m sorry,” she managed, as she washed down some of the food with cola. “I guess I’ve been a little nervous to talk to you.”

 

“It looks that way, sweetheart. Have I done something to make you think that there are things you can’t tell me? You know I’ll love you anyway, no matter what,” Lena said, softly.

 

Kara stifled another sob. It took her another minute or so to regain her composure, Lena rubbing a thumb across her knuckles soothingly.

 

Kara coughed, sitting up a little straighter.

 

“I’m sorry. Okay. So, the first thing was the disappearing at the last minute, or cancelling on you, or whatever. I’m sure there are other things, too, that you’ve noticed about me. I’m an alien, Lena,” Kara said, fiddling with her glasses.

 

“Oh,” Lena breathed. “Well, that was my number 2 guess. After vigilante/ninja assassin.”

 

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m a ninja, either. But the vigilante part was technically true, at one point,” Kara said, with the hint of a smile. “Before I started working with the government, I did a few days as a vigilante. But they caught me one night and eventually we came to an agreement.”

 

Lena was deep in thought, looking at Kara’s face, then away, and then at Kara’s shoulders, and then away.

 

“So, do I need to do the big reveal?” Kara asked. “Should I throw away my glasses and rip my shirt open?”

 

“Mmm. Kinky, but not necessary. Supergirl. You know, I would have said, before, that just a ponytail and a pair of glasses wouldn’t work as a disguise, but it really does, doesn’t it? I guess you don’t expect the Girl of Steel to be content fetching lattes for Cat Grant or even working as a mild-mannered reporter.”

 

Kara was watching her closely, but Lena didn’t look annoyed. If anything, she looked amused, and… fond?

 

“Are you okay with it, Lena?” she asked, hesitantly. Lena was still staring off into space, clearly thinking deeply.

 

“Jesus FUCKING Christ!” she yelled suddenly, leaping to her feet. “Clark fucking Kent is Superman! My god! How did Lex never find out? You’re like masters of disguise!”

 

Kara sat still, holding her breath. Was this a good outburst, or an ‘oh my god I must kill all aliens’ outburst? Then Lena laughed, and Kara could breathe again.

 

Lena sat down abruptly.

 

“Well. If you’d asked me how my day was going to go, this is not what I was expecting,” Lena murmured.

 

“Do you… do you want some time, to think about all this, Lena?”

 

Lena turned to look at her, eyes sharp.

 

“No, Kara. I… I figured most of it out already, I just never put two and two together about Supergirl. Which is ridiculous, because you smell the same, and you both do that thing where you bounce up and down on your toes when you’re excited, and I swear I’ve never seen another person do that before. I’m not upset, except at myself, because how the hell did I miss that?” Lena said, sighing.

 

“It’s one of those ‘hiding in plain sight’ things,” Kara said, fiddling with her glasses.

 

“And what about the glasses? Do you need them?” Lena went to take them off, and Kara moved back again.

 

“I’m a little overwhelmed right now, so they’re helping keep my senses a little dulled. They’re lined with lead. You can have a look if you want later, but I’d like to keep them on just now, if that’s okay?”

 

Lena nodded, smiling slightly. It was a relief to see it, and Kara breathed in, a nice long breath, and then released it.

 

“So, you said there was something else,” Lena said, settling back the couch, her feet tucked underneath her.

 

“Yeah. That’s the… difficult part,” Kara said.

 

“Difficult? How can it be more difficult than telling me you’ve been hiding such a huge part of yourself from me?” Lena asked, but there was no malice in her tone, only puzzlement.

 

“It might not be that difficult to hear – I don’t want to make assumptions about my place in your life, or anything. But it’s difficult for me to say.”

 

“Okay,” Lena said, taking a sip of her wine. “Out with it, then, Kara. We can’t deal with it until we know what it is.”

 

“Okay. So, I’m from Krypton, as you know? I was out with my sister, Alex, and her girlfriend at this dive bar we go to sometimes. It’s a hole in the wall kind of place, you can’t get in without a password, and it caters mostly to off-worlders. I was pretty amazed when I saw how many were there, that first night, and that was just people who lived in National City. Anyway, I was at the bar – they sell drinks that can actually make me drunk, which was a first for me – and I overheard this guy telling someone that he’d heard about some Kryptonians settling in the Starhaven system. Starhaven is this planet that was about 10 light years from Krypton. I went there when I was a kid with my parents, on holiday. The air smelled like cinnamon. Anyway, I asked him about what he’d heard, and he told me all he knew. I’ve checked his story with others, and it seems like the rumour didn’t just come from one person.”

 

Kara looked up. Lena was white-faced, her lips tightly pursed, bloodless.

 

“I’m going to try to find them,” Kara said, quietly. “I was a member of one of the ruling families on Krypton, and I feel that I owe it to them – I need to find them and make sure they’re safe and well and that they’re not in any more danger.”

 

She trailed off, and Lena sat there, staring, unseeing, for another ten or so minutes. Kara shuffled her feet a little.

 

“Lena, do you want me to go?” she asked, whispering.

 

Lena looked up at her in shock, as if she’d forgotten Kara was there. She still didn’t speak.

 

“I should go. Give you some time to think. Are you going to be okay?” Kara asked. “Is there someone you want me to…”

 

“When?” Lena asked, voice croaking. cracking.

 

“When what?” Kara asked.

 

“When are you going?” Lena asked, looking up at Kara, eyes dull.

 

“Just less than 2 weeks, as long as I can get my ship outfitted in that time,” Kara said, wringing her hands together.

 

“For how long, Kara?”

 

“I don’t know,” Kara whispered.

 

“Are you coming back?” Lena demanded.

 

“I… I hope so. I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t. But things can go wrong, so I can’t make any promises,” Kara said.

 

“Do you love me, Kara?” Lena asked, eyes filling with tears.

 

“Of course I do, Lena. How can you… why would you think that I don’t?”

 

“Because you’re leaving. I always thought that if a person loved me, they would stay.”

 

Kara moved closer tentatively. “I wouldn’t leave for _anything_ else, Lena. But these are my people. In another lifetime, I would have been one of the heads of the council. And it was, in part, my mother’s inaction that condemned our whole race to death. Maybe I shouldn’t feel this responsibility, but I do. They survived a horrible catastrophe that could have been averted. My parents could have evacuated the planet, but instead they chose to pretend it wasn’t happening. I _owe_ them. At least a visit, to see if there’s anything I can do for them,” Kara said, voice breaking.

 

“And what is it, exactly, that you can offer them?” Lena asked, sarcastically.

 

“A home, maybe,” Kara said, shrugging. “President Marsdin has tentatively agreed to take at least some of them in, if they wish to live on Earth and sign a treaty of non-aggression and agree to have their abilities bound until they prove themselves. If things go well, I’m hoping to be back on Earth well before President Marsdin’s term ends, with or without my people,” Kara said.

 

“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?” Lena said, bitterly.

 

“I only found out a week ago, Lena. I talked with Clark and Alex and my boss at the DEO and I made the decision a few days ago,” Kara said, holding her palms outstretched.

 

“And it didn’t occur to you that I might… that you might be important to me, Kara?”

 

“Of course it did, Lena! I don’t _want_ to leave. I don’t want to leave my family and friends, or my city, or the Earth. This is my home! But I also have a duty to my people, and no matter how much I try to think my way around it, I can’t get past that responsibility. Tell me, wouldn’t you do exactly the same in my position?”

 

Lena glared at her, but after a moment she took a deep breath.

 

“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to change your mind?” Lena asked, sounding more broken than Kara had ever seen before.

 

“I’m sorry, Lena. I’m not going because I want to. I’m going because I have to.”

 

“You really are just that good, aren’t you?” Lena murmured, leaning over to stroke Kara’s face. She was so close, and all Kara wanted to do was to kiss her. Kiss her and never stop. But that would be beyond unfair in the circumstances. Maybe if Lena was still single when she returned? She could always hope.

 

“I want you to do something for me, before you go,” Lena said, still stroking a finger across Kara’s cheek gently. It was making Kara’s skin tingle, and she had her eyes tightly closed so she couldn’t see Lena’s face, so close to hers.

 

“Anything,” Kara said, immediately.

 

“I need you, Kara. I need whatever you can give me for these two weeks. I love you and I need to know that you love me, too,” Lena said.

 

“Okay?” Kara said, doubtfully. “But what do you…”

 

Lena pulled Kara an inch closer and their lips met. It was soft and sweet, and Kara pulled back almost immediately.

 

“I know I said anything, Lena, but… I want this, I want it so badly, but I told myself I couldn’t have it because I don’t want to start something like this and then have to up and leave you. I know how much that would hurt you,” Kara whispered, her forehead against Lena’s.

 

“It’s up to me to decide what hurts me more, Kara. If you don’t want this, then go. But if you do want it, I want you to be here. I want you in my bed, I want you here as much as you can be until you have to go. I need that from you, Kara. If I’m losing you now for god knows how long, I think I should be allowed two weeks, don’t you?”

 

Her eyes were piercing, swirling with a mixture of anger, pain, and lust.

 

“Are you sure about this?” Kara asked, cupping Lena’s jaw with her right hand.

 

“Yes. Now take me to bed, Kara, and fuck me until I see stars.”

 

Kara did as she was told, praying to Rao the whole time that Lena wouldn’t regret this when she was gone, that this love-making would be the thing her Lena needed to get through her absence. Rao heard her prayers.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of Kara's journey, and some of her present.

* * *

_“I made it in a few weeks to Starhaven. Since I was last there, probably 40-ish years ago, they have had a serious civil war, and the place is in ruins. I was still able to barter for food and fuel, and directions to the planet where the Kryptonians were supposedly living. It took me a few weeks to get there.”_

 

“Rao-forsaken system! What the hell is wrong with this? The air used to smell like cinnamon, and now the water smells like Tharg urine! What did I do to deserve this?”

 

Kara swore again at the taste of the ‘water’ she’d been given by the Starhaven dockmaster. She was pretty sure that the diamonds she had provided (collected on Saturn on her way out of Earth’s solar system) were more than enough to keep her and half of Krypton alive for a hundred years in luxurious surroundings, but diamonds were nothing to people who were starving or dying of thirst. You couldn’t eat or drink them.  She was pretty sure the dockmaster only gave her this piss-water out of pity.

 

She had checked in on several planets on her way through the star systems to get here. There were only 8 light years to go, and she’d be face to face with these mysterious Kryptonians. It felt strange to be without her powers – her skin itched, wanting to bathe in the light of the yellow sun, to bring her back to full strength. When her powers had finally given out after leaving Sol’s system, she’d slept for almost 48 hours.

 

She had two small pistols based on Alex’s energy blaster and she’d spent so much time practising with them in the 2 weeks before leaving that she actually felt strange without them in her hands, now. She had never needed guns before, and at first something about them felt… wrong, in her hands. But until she could find a way to keep her powers without being in the same system as a yellow giant, she would have to make do with what she had. She had no plans for interstellar travel after this, anyway.

 

She made a quick video diary, telling Lena about the piss-tasting water, and joking that it was Rao’s revenge for her leaving. She hoped it would make Lena laugh, if she ever saw it. She also recorded a message for Alex and Maggie and their unborn child, telling them both how much she loved them, and that she wished they were with her. Leaving Alex behind had been one of the most difficult things she’d ever done, but galaxy-hopping on a small spacecraft was not an ideal place for an unborn child’s development.

 

She finished up her video diary and prayed, sending her love to Rao and to her Earth friends and family. When it was time to sleep, she dreamed of Lena Luthor, about the sharpness of her eyes, the perfection of her cheekbones, about the noises she made when Kara touched her in just the right place. She was glad that Lena wasn’t with her. She would have spent her entire time worrying that something would happen to the woman she loved.   But she missed her so much that it physically hurt.

 

***

 

“Jesus, Kara. Who knew you had those abs hidden under all that argyle?” Lena said, gasping for breath.

 

“I can’t take credit for them, honey. It’s kind of a side effect of the Kryptonian physiology. The last time I pulled a muscle it was because I lifted a million-tonne spaceship out of earth orbit,” Kara said, chuckling.

 

“You make me sick,” Lena said, rolling her eyes. “Stupid perfect alien,” she muttered.

 

“You know I can hear you, right?” Kara asked, cocking an eyebrow.

 

“That’s not fair, Kara,” Lena grumbled.

 

“Hey. You should be grateful. You know at least twice, I’ve been there to save you in time because I heard your heart start to race,” Kara said.

 

“Are you serious?” Lena asked, hand on her heart. Kara was a little distracted by her breasts right about then, but she pulled her attention back to Lena.

 

“Absolutely. The time when those guys threw you off your balcony? I was already halfway out the window before you said a thing about being in trouble. And that time when Cyborg Superman tried to kidnap you at LCorp?”

 

“Which time?” Lena asked, smirking.

 

“True. But at least one of those times, I was only there on time because I could hear your heartbeat shoot up, and I knew you were terrified.”

 

Lena looked at her intently.

 

“I don’t know how I’m going to survive without you here, Kara,” she said, honestly. “I have never been as happy as I’ve been this last year, since I met you.”

 

“Likewise,” Kara said, taking Lena’s hand and kissing it.

 

Lena chuckled.

 

“Why are you laughing?” Kara asked, slightly hurt.

 

“You had Mon-El. You looked so happy when you were with him, Kara. And then when he was gone… I just felt so awful for you. You can’t honestly tell me that you weren’t happy then.”

 

“It was hard to lose him, I will admit,” Kara said. “But recently, when I’ve looked back on it, I had to wonder what it was that I saw in him? He was such an ass to me. I mean, he tried to get me not to be champion of Earth against Rhea, because he thought Superman should do it. The same Superman who I had just beaten in combat,” Kara said, pushing her hair back from her face restlessly.

 

“I can’t honestly say I liked him, but it seemed like he made you happy, and I couldn’t argue with that.”

 

“Maybe because you didn’t see him with Supergirl – me. He was such an ass to me. I really don’t know why no-one told me. Alex even encouraged me to take a chance on him. I mean, it was nice not to have to think about my strength when we were – you know,” Kara trailed off. “But that was about the only upside.”

 

Lena nodded, and then she moved, putting her hot mouth on Kara’s neck, and their conversation was over for a little while.

 

***

 

“We’re all done here, Miss Zor-El,” the bland military bureaucrat said to Kara. It had been two days of interrogations and medical tests under a red sun lamp, the staff seemingly determined to be sure that Kara wasn’t the carrier of some sort of deep space flu that would wipe out all mankind. “You just need to sign this.”

 

Kara picked up the sheaf of papers he wanted her to sign. It was a non-aggression agreement, similar to the one she’d discussed with President Marsdin for the other Kryptonians before she left. She laughed to herself a little about the irony, but signed the thing anyway.

 

“You can land at the DEO on the helipad. Director Henshaw is waiting,” bland-face said.

 

She nodded.

 

“Are they allowed to tell me what’s been going on?” she asked. Repeated attempts to get information on why the Earth had a space station that seemed to be a border control for aliens had yielded only glares.

 

“They will be able to fill you in,” he said, blank-faced.

 

She nodded, and was escorted to the airlock by armed men. She stepped inside and set the ship to calculate the correct re-entry angle and speed, and she was soon shooting through the atmosphere, the outside of the ship on fire. It was thrilling and terrifying. She had a less congenial relationship with fire these days, now that she’d been victim to its effects without her powers.

 

She piloted the small craft carefully and slowly, finding the DEO building quickly, standing tall in the middle of National City. She could see LCorp, a little further into the financial district, and her breath caught in her throat. Lena Luthor. She wondered how Lena looked now, if she was even still the CEO of LCorp. If she was even still… Kara headed off that thought quickly. Everyone was fine, or J’onn would have told her when she called, right?

 

She landed on the roof of the building, her ship touching down gently. She patted the control stick gently, thanking the little craft for its service.

 

She stepped out and found herself surrounded by gun-wielding agents wearing helmets. They were all pointing their weapons at her. One of them ordered her to put her hands on her head, which she did with a sigh.

 

“You do realise that I could disarm all of you before you could take a shot?” she said, frustrated. 

 

“I think you’ll find that’s not the case,” a voice said. J’onn Jonzz stepped into the circle of gunmen, telling them to stand down. “Kara, it’s so good to see you.”

 

He walked to her and pulled her into a tight hug. It felt amazing, and Kara hugged him back with almost all of her strength.

 

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, sighing.

 

He let go and stepped back, taking her in.

 

“I’ve missed you too. You… you missed a lot. And you don’t look well, Kara.”

 

“Well, a lot happened to me, too,” Kara sighed. “Can I go inside or am I going to get shot in the ass?”

 

“I don’t think they’re going to shoot you in the ass. They’re trained to go centre-mass,” J’onn said, winking.

 

“So what did you mean, that I couldn’t disarm your people before they fired?” Kara asked.

 

“New weaponry, and enhanced tech. Human eyes can’t follow your movements, but our new weapons can, if we set them for an alien.”

 

“What the hell happened, J’onn?” she asked, as they reached the elevator and half the guards crowded in with her, still wearing their helmets.

 

“That is a long story, Kara. We should get you to medical and then we’ll brief and debrief.”

 

“I’ve just had a hundred tests.” Kara groaned theatrically, and one of the agents twitched, grabbing at his weapon. “At ease, dude. I’m not refusing. I’m just a little tired of having thermometers inserted where things just… shouldn’t be inserted,” she said, shuddering. The agent started, then chuckled before standing up straight, abruptly, at attention once again.

 

J’onn shared an amused look with Kara.

 

When they arrived inside the DEO, Kara noticed that it was darker inside and that faces were missing, and those that remained looked much grimmer than they had. Vasquez, however, was still there, and her eyes lit up when she saw Kara.

 

“Supergirl!” she said, putting down the slim tablet she was using and trotting over. Kara wrapped her in a hug.

 

“Susan. You look great! How have you been?” Kara asked.

 

“Better now you’re back, Ma’am,” Susan said. She looked solemn, suddenly.

 

“I don’t know what’s happened, so I’ll come see you when I’m caught up,” Kara promised. Vasquez nodded gravely.

 

J’onn took Kara straight to medical after that, and she was delighted to see Alex standing there waiting, tapping at a tablet. She was half-facing the door, and she looked a little bit older. Her hair was a little longer, but not as long as when she was in med school, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

 

“Alex,” Kara breathed quietly.

 

Alex turned, eyes widening, and she threw herself at Kara, tablet falling to the floor. She hugged Kara so tightly that it had to have been hurting her, but Kara didn’t mind. She wept into her sister’s shoulder, squeezing her back, displeased at how thin Alex was.

 

Alex moved back after a few minutes, wiping her eyes, and she pointed at Kara.

 

“I’m still mad at you,” she said. Kara laughed.

 

“Not as mad as I am at myself,” she said, smile disappearing. Alex frowned.

 

“I’ll leave you in AD Danvers’ capable hands,” J’onn said, nodding to Kara. “I’ll come to speak with you when you’re done.”

 

Kara nodded and J’onn left. There was silence for a moment, and Kara smiled at her sister shyly.

 

“I missed you so much,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

 

“I missed you. I can’t believe you missed the birth of your first niece,” Alex said, eyes streaming. She wiped them, sniffing.

 

“I can’t believe it either. But I got some of your messages, and I saw her picture,” Kara said, smiling.

 

“That was almost 3 years ago, Kar. I haven’t heard from you since then. J’onn told me your ship was coming back, that it was out there, but I didn’t believe him. It was easier to believe you weren’t coming back,” Alex said, trying to keep her face expressionless, but failing. “I saw it for myself on our sensors, and then I saw video of you talking to him, but… I still didn’t want to hold out hope.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Alex. I didn’t want to be gone this whole time.”

  
“Then why were you?” Alex asked bluntly.

 

“Are you sitting in on the briefing/debriefing I’m going to have with J’onn?” Kara asked.

 

“Yes,” Alex said.

  
“Can you wait until then? I don’t think I can tell it twice,” Kara said. Her eyes were filled now, and she looked away from Alex’s concerned face.

 

She stripped down to her underclothes – a simple wrap for her breasts instead of a bra, and some tight-fitting shorts as underwear. She sighed as Alex gasped.

 

“What the hell happened to you, Kara?” she said, almost shrieking.

 

“Long story,” Kara said, shaking her head. “Not now.”

 

Alex took her time cataloguing Kara’s injuries and scars. It took over an hour, and then she grabbed a red sun lamp and took some blood, testing it immediately on some sort of portable device. A few minutes after she fed it Kara’s blood, the machine beeped, a light turning green, and Alex let out a sigh of relief.

 

“Ok. You’re good to go, Kara,” Alex said, handing her a green wristband. “Make sure that’s visible at all times while you’re out in public.”

 

“Okay,” Kara said, frowning.

 

“Later, I guess,” Alex said. She did a few more tests, checking Kara’s eyesight and hearing and the temperature of her heat vision and freeze breath, along with her grip strength. “So you’re a perfectly healthy Kryptonian.”

 

“More or less,” Kara said, shrugging. She was getting antsy. She wanted to go, to fly, to see Lena.

 

“All in good time, Supergirl,” J’onn said, striding through the door.

 

“Did you read my mind?” she asked, puzzled. Kryptonians were immune to telepathy.

 

“No, I just know you. You want to go to see Lena Luthor, I imagine.”

 

“Yes, how…”

 

“As I said, all in good time,” he said, holding a hand up. Kara belatedly noticed that he was wearing a green band on his wrist too, as was Alex.

 

He led them to a conference room and Kara sat down, pushing her hair back from her face.

 

“So. Debrief or brief, first?” Kara asked.

 

“Debrief,” J’onn said.

 

Kara sighed, resigned.

 

“You sure you can’t wait for the movie?”

 

“I’m pretty sure I can’t,” J’onn said, smiling.

 

“Okay.”

 

***

 

The Kryptonians weren’t on the fourth planet. There was plentiful evidence that they had been, but there was no-one there, not on the surface or under it when she scanned. They had built temporary homes using Kryptonian technology and materials – Kara could see the residue of materials that she knew weren’t used anywhere else.

 

She found a few traces of information – one infopad that had details of a moon in a red sun system which was mostly uncharted and unremarkable. And a video diary. She put it into the player on her ship, and watched avidly.

 

_“The Starhaven civil war has spilled out onto the surrounding planets. We’ve already had four boarding parties land, and each time we have only just avoided hostilities. Ket-Vek has not been helpful, with his superior attitude.”_

 

A woman’s face came into the frame, then. She looked at little like Lara Lor-Van, Kara thought.

 

_“I miss my husband. He perished on Krypton long ago, but I still can’t let go of him. The Els have got a lot to answer for,” she said, teeth gritted. Kara jumped at the mention of her family name. “We found some records that Sed-Rek grabbed before we fled, and after going through them it became clear that not only did Alura Zor-El and the rest of the council know that the core was unstable, they deliberately covered it up! The woman even sent her own twin to the Phantom Zone to keep it secret. Her own twin. How sick does a person have to be to sentence their own twin sister to eternal life in a nightmare prison? Not only that, but there is evidence that she and her brother-in-law conspired to break Krypton’s laws concerning interstellar travel to yellow sun systems. She procured two ancient pods and sent her daughter and her nephew to the Sol system, and I’m sure the little bastards are thriving there, living like gods under a yellow sun. They’re probably running the planet. Tests showed that there are few limitations for a Kryptonian within a yellow sun system, hence why it was made illegal for us to travel there. But Alura decided she was above the law…” the woman trailed off, a mix of furious and sad._

 

_“I miss my husband,” she said, again, helplessly._

 

She stabbed at the camera angrily and it went dark.

 

“Wow,” Kara said, her voice echoing around the tiny ship. She hadn’t seen another Kryptonian for a while, since Myriad. And they blamed her family for the destruction of the planet. For the millionth time, she doubted the wisdom of this trip. If that one woman was so angry at her family, what were the rest likely to be like?

 

She watched another few entries, and the gist was the same, except for the odd description of a meal they’d made or a ship that had passed by. The Kryptonians ended up having a meeting, however, and they decided to move on to the moon they’d chosen in a system nearby. It was untouched, the area unclaimed, and no-one was likely to want to bother them there. The moon had perfect conditions for the Kryptonians. The climate was just right for most of their plants and they even had DNA samples of their animal species. Careful re-introduction should mean that they were able to build flocks of herd animals for milk and food, and vegetables for consumption.

 

_“The El children live in luxury, powerful beyond imagination, and we struggle and suffer like grubs. If we try to move to Earth, we will be intercepted by the Green Lanterns, undoubtedly. I pray to Rao that the Els suffer as we have.”_

 

The woman’s face was contorted, her teeth bared, as she cursed Kara and Kal-El. What had they done to deserve her ire? Surely blaming Kara for Alura’s actions was unfair? It certainly did not live up to the spirit of the Girod, the rules by which all Kryptonians aspired to live.

 

Kara prayed to her god that day and the next, fasting and drinking only the piss-tasting water. On the third day, she set a course for the nameless moon, 24 light years away, and hissed as the FTL drive kicked in, gifting her with a headache the size of Jupiter.

 

Even with FTL, it took months to get there, and Kara was cursing herself because she was too impatient to be gone to wait for a craft with a faster interstellar drive. She spent her time praying, exercising and dreaming of home.

 

The moon had a few traces of occupation, but then there was damage all round consistent with a ship’s blasters.

 

Kara swore loudly in _Kryptahniuo_. How long was she going to be chasing these people for? She needed fuel and food and she had yet to encounter any world where her diamonds were worth much. On Earth she could have bought the whole planet for the price of the diamonds she had collected.

 

She searched through the ship’s database, finding an inhabited world just within her reach. It would mean another few weeks’ travel, but there were no clues, here, as to where her people might have gone.

 

It took two years, all in all, until she landed on the planet where the Kryptonians actually were. She was carefully dressed in clothes with her family’s crest carefully sewn into them. The sigil was understated, and she hoped that she didn’t come across as pompous or conceited. She just wanted the people here to know who she was, so that her offer to return to Earth with her was perceived as genuine.

 

She stepped out her the little craft, taking a deep breath, and was met by a group of strangers wearing Kryptonian clothes, house symbols displayed proudly. And every one of them was pointing a weapon at her. She held her hands up.

 

“Hi! I’m Kara Zor-El,” she said, smiling. “I’m here to help.”

 

One of the men hit her on the side of the head with the butt of his weapon, and Kara saw nothing but endless black.

 

***

Mid-September 2017

 

“Kara, you can’t… please, please don’t go,” Lena begged.

 

“Lena, please. My love, please. I don’t want to go. You know that it’s my duty,” Kara said, stroking Lena’s face with a finger gently.

 

“I can’t do any of this without you, Kara,” Lena whispered, eyes streaming.

 

“Sweetheart. You know I would. But I can’t… they’re my people, Lena. My family destroyed our planet and killed most of our people. These are the last remnants, and they’re my responsibility.”

 

“Clark is older,” Lena said stubbornly. “And his father was just as culpable, from what you’ve said.”

 

“Jor-El told the council what was happening. My mother made the decision to cover it up after the Council threatened to censure him, too. I think she was trying to help my father save face. It isn’t Clark’s responsibility, and even if it were, I’d be the better choice. He speaks our language like a barbarian, and he knows nothing of our culture.”

 

“I know,” Lena said, brokenly. “I know.”

 

She pulled Kara to her and kissed her feverishly, pulling at her bottom lip with her teeth and letting her hands roam. Kara took the hint and slid down the bed, kissing Lena intimately and holding her through her orgasm and the subsequent storm of tears.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara briefs J'onn and Alex on what happened while she was away, and they fill her on matters on Earth.

* * *

Tears spilled from Kara’s eyes as she told J’onn and Alex about the Kryptonians.

 

“They locked me up, built a cell deep inside a cave so that I never saw the sun. Their leader was named Ket-Vek,” Kara said, face twisting with disgust and hatred.

 

“What did he do to you?” Alex asked, eyes blazing.

 

“He… they held a trial. They sentenced me for the crimes of my parents. I wasn’t allowed to speak. In fact, when I did, they punched me in the throat again and again so that I couldn’t speak for days. It was only by virtue of my physiology that I didn’t die immediately.”

 

Kara coughed, a nervous reaction, and continued.

 

“They took turns torturing me. It seems that after what happened on our planet, they denounced Rao and his teachings, and the Girod. They decided that they would do as the Daxamites did, and they took what they wanted. They’d been attacked every time they thought they found somewhere safe, so they started to get vicious.”

 

“Shit,” Alex breathed. J’onn’s eyes burned red for a moment.

 

“It started with just beatings. Everyone got a turn. There were four hundred or so on the planet they found. Their plan was to settle for a while and then find a yellow sun system outside of the Green Lantern’s jurisdiction, and then to take any suitable planet they found, inhabited or not.”

 

“So what happened then?” J’onn asked, looking supremely unhappy with her story.

 

“The days blended. I tried to stay healthy, and did exercises to keep my muscles strong until I couldn’t anymore. They were starving me, deliberately giving me the bare minimum of food to keep me alive, just so I’d be around for them to play with,” Kara said, bitterly.

 

“Did they…?” Alex trailed off, making a gesture that Kara couldn’t interpret. Alex whispered a word under her breath, and Kara blanched.

 

“No. They had a ruling council of sorts, and though half were men, half weren’t. That sort of thing – it never happened on Krypton. The kind of gender inequality that exists on Earth hadn’t been an issue since we lived in caves,” Kara explained.

 

“How did you get free?”

 

“I made a friend,” Kara said, shrugging.

 

Alex just raised an eyebrow.

 

“There was a younger woman – not a child, but a young woman – and she knew me, when I lived on Krypton. She was very young then, of course, but she had fond memories of me and of my mother and father. I used to give her sweet treats on feast days. I think… she had a crush. I… I’m not proud, but I took advantage of that.”

 

“Oh,” Alex said, eyes wide. “I’m so sorry, Kara.”

 

“Don’t be. She wasn’t exactly innocent, as it turned out. She… we’d been sleeping together for a while, late at night when she was supposed to be keeping an eye on me. She told me she was waiting for the right time to let me out, to get me to my ship. But I overheard her one night. She must have been standing just in the right place, somewhere near the mouth of the cave, because she was talking to this guy, a friend of hers I guess, and she was boasting about how she had tricked the high and mighty daughter of El into becoming her whore.

 

“She thinks I’m letting her out. But with a mouth like hers, it would be a sin to set her free,” she had said, laughing, and her friend – her boyfriend, as it turned out – laughed with her.

 

“That night, when she came to me, to use me, I snapped her neck,” Kara said, her voice toneless. “I stole her keys and her weapon – which, in fact, was one of the blasters you made for me, Alex. I never did find the other one. I sneaked out, killed two more of them by snapping their necks, and I permanently disabled all of their ships before I left. They had plenty of food on that planet to sustain them, and I figured that a few decades of cooling their heels might make them understand that life is too short to go on some sort of power-hungry rampage. When I got away, I found the nearest inhabited planet, but it took me a while to scrounge enough money together to get enough fuel to get home. I had to work on a mining planet for a while, just moving rocks with my bare hands. They didn’t pay much, but they fed me well with plenty of protein, and I grew a lot of my muscle back then. A few months passed and I managed enough credit to buy fuel, and here I am,” Kara said.

 

She left out Ket-Vek’s daily visits, the torments he dreamed up. The people he killed in her name. The pictures of the dead, the damage the Kryptonite did to those who survived but were still too close to Krypton.

 

“Jesus, Kara,” Alex said, scooting closer and hugging her tightly. “I can’t believe they did that to you.”

 

“The way they saw it, they were getting justice. My family were guilty of mass-murder, and I was held accountable.”

 

Kara looked away uncomfortably. She did feel responsible, and she always would. Even though she knew that she was just as much of a victim as they were. Her parents had sent her away – she’d had no choice in anything that happened. She was only a child, hardly old enough to decide how to wear her hair.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alex said. “You didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, Kara, and the choices that your parents made affected you just as badly as anyone else on the planet. You got to live, but with the weight of a world on your shoulders, even before you got here. It’s a testament to your strength and compassion that you took on the weight of our world, too.”

 

Kara smiled wordlessly, and Alex side-hugged her.

 

“So. Brief, now?”

 

“Yes,” J’onn said.

 

It was a devastating tale. Around two and a half years after Kara’s departure, the Earth had been invaded by the Dominators – from Earth 1. They killed thousands before Superman was able to take them down with the aid of the Flash and Earth 1’s heroes. They had been looking for Kara, and had a virus that they had tailor-made for her.

 

“It was made to kill you as painfully as possible, and it would have worked. When Kal began to get sick, we had no idea what was happening – first of all I thought it was a Kryptonian illness that maybe we didn’t know about. I tried contacting you but you must have been out of range by then.”

 

Kara was shaking.

 

“Is he…?”

 

“No. Not yet,” Alex said. It was less than reassuring.

 

“Tell me the rest,” Kara said.

 

“The virus hit Kal-El hard, causing him tremendous pain that no analgesics could touch, even under red sunlight or with Kryptonite exposure. Then one of his doctors got sick. Then another. By the time we realised what was happening, Dr Hamilton had gone home to take some bed rest. We sent a team to retrieve her, but she’d already crossed paths with four people. They all died within days, each of them infecting others.”

 

Kara’s mouth dropped open.

 

“How many?”

 

“We managed to contain it within North America. And then Eliza came up with a cure, along with Alex,” J’onn said. “Unfortunately, before we could administer it to the population – we had several launches of a gaseous antidote planned, ironically based on Lillian Luthor’s work with Medusa – the virus mutated again. Now people who get it don’t die, but are made infertile. That virus spread like wildfire, unbeknownst to us. We administered the cure for the first strain, preventing any more deaths, and then stories came in from a few places. Of all the people who had been infected, only a small percentage were trying to get pregnant, and those people had tests, and a new cause for infertility was found. Alex put it together, and we finally managed to shut it down, but at least half of the world’s population were infected with the mutated virus. When the last of this generation’s children dies out, Earth’s population will have decreased dramatically.”

 

“Rao,” Kara breathed. “What… what was the death toll, altogether?”

 

“A couple of million, give or take. Those killed in the Dominator’s initial attack, and those killed by the original virus.”

 

Kara dropped her head into her hands.

 

“This is my fault,” Kara said.

 

“How do you figure that?” Alex asked, looking at her in disbelief.

 

“They wouldn’t have come here, would they, if I hadn’t gone to help on Earth 1,” Kara said.

 

“So you would rather everyone on Earth 1 had died, and the Dominators spread throughout their galaxy?”

 

“Of course not, but how… how do I reconcile that? They wouldn’t have had a reason to cross into another universe if I hadn’t defeated them.”

 

“Kara, you went to help save another Earth from being destroyed. No-one on this Earth blamed you,” Alex said earnestly. However, she did wince slightly, and Kara sighed.

 

“You’re lying.”

 

“Okay, maybe there was some… discussion, of your choices. But anyone who had any iota of compassion understood why you did what you did. The Flash defended you, telling everyone that he wouldn’t be alive without your heroics. Most people were fine with it. I think you not being here, and them targeting Kal – that made it look bad. But mostly people have forgotten about it now.”

 

“I hope you’re right,” Kara said. “So that explains the space station and the less-than-warm welcome. What else has happened? Where is Kal, and what’s his condition?”

 

“Kal is in a stasis chamber in the Fortress. We pulled a tiny piece of the Phantom Zone out – actually it was Lena’s idea – and he’s been frozen in time since then.”

 

“Rao,” Kara said. “Is there any way he might wake up?”

 

“Well, that’s where you come in,” Alex said. “Sorry to spring this on you, but we have a mission for you, Supergirl.”

 

“Oh. Okay. Anything for Kal,” Kara said.

 

“We have worked it out. If he has a blood transfusion and is close enough to the Sun, he should be able to flush out all of the virus. Obviously the blood needs to be Kryptonian, so that has to be you. And you’re the only one who can get close enough to the sun to make him well again.”

 

Alex opened something on her tablet, showing Kara the design for a space suit.

 

“This is to allow you both to travel as close to the sun as possible,” Alex said. “It will give you additional oxygen and thrusters so that you can move back and forth between the ship and the sun.”

 

“Okay,” Kara said, shrugging. “When do I leave?”

 

The short answer was right away. Alex gathered supplies together, including spacesuits and plenty of food and medical equipment. Kara lifted it all to the elevator and into her ship, grinning at the looks of amazement on the newer agents’ faces. She bid farewell for now to J’onn and to Vasquez, who was wearing a red wristband.

 

“Does that mean she’s…”

 

“Yes,” Alex said, shortly. “Don’t take off just yet. I have to call Maggie.”

 

Alex called Maggie on what looked like a thin piece of glass that she produced from her pocket. Maggie’s face lit up the screen, and Kara smiled at her. Alex saw her face and turned the device round so that Kara could see Maggie.

 

“Kara! Oh my God! Alex told me you were coming back, but I didn’t… I didn’t want to hope,” Maggie said, her hand to her mouth. Kara almost gasped when she saw the red wristband on Maggie’s wrist.

 

She called their daughter, Laura, and the little girl came from somewhere and waved shyly when Maggie introduced her.

 

“This is your aunt Kara, baby,” Maggie said. The love in her voice moved Kara, and she waved at her niece, swallowing back tears. She turned away while Alex and Maggie spoke, getting the craft ready for take-off.

 

“Okay,” Alex said. “Let’s go to the Fortress.”

 

Kara started the engines and lifted the ship, hovering while turning the nose to point North. She took off at just under Mach 1, mindful of other aircraft in the vicinity.

 

“I’m not going to get shot down or anything, am I?” Kara asked, using the exterior cameras to check for anyone following.

 

“We’re good. J’onn notified the authorities that a spaceship would be operating in the vicinity for the next week or so.”

 

“Do you think it’ll take that long?” Kara asked, something inside of her chafing at the delay.

 

“I don’t know,” Alex said, spreading her hands. “This is all theory. The treatment might not even work.”

 

Kara nodded, shooting them up the Pacific coast, lower than most aircraft, keeping her eyes peeled for any other flying beings in the vicinity.

 

“How have you been?” Kara asked, setting the ship onto autopilot once they were past the more populated areas, the little craft skimming around the coasts and uninhabited areas of Canada, now.

 

“It’s been hard. You saw Maggie’s wrist,” Alex said flatly.

 

“I did. She can’t have any more children?”

 

“No. Her hormones are permanently changed. She still has a sex drive, sort of. She has to take supplements. But she’ll never have any more children, and the way the virus messed with her cells, it… I still haven’t found a way to fertilise her eggs. It’s like they’re just empty cells.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Alex. You know, I did take some crystals with me when I broke out of where they were holding me,” Kara said, thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure I have the schematics for our birthing pods. There might be some elements we need to get from other worlds, but my ship is okay for short jumps, still. I think we could probably any missing elements from nearby worlds and build a pod, maybe more than one. If anything can make the cells viable, it would be Kryptonian tech. We had to be advanced when it came to having children – almost no-one had children naturally.”

 

“I think it’s worth a try,” Alex said, shrugging. “It might be something we have to look into. I mean, we are pretty sure we eradicated the virus, but if we didn’t, then the next generation could be affected too.”

 

“Rao,” Kara breathed. She took back control from the autopilot, landing the small craft near the door to the Fortress. She opened the door and lifted Alex easily in her arms, flying them up to the door. She set Alex down gently, grabbing the huge key for the door, and easily opened it.

 

She sobbed for ten minutes after as she saw Kal. His face was almost yellow inside the little pod where his half-dead body was in stasis, and his eyes were ringed with black. He looked like a ten-day old corpse.

 

She calmed down enough that she was able to pick up the stasis pod under one arm and lift Alex with the other. She stowed both safely in the ship, going back to lock the Fortress door, and then she set a course for Sol, allowing the craft to make its own calculations while she carefully secured Kal’s stasis chamber to a bulkhead.

 

“How did Lois take all this?” Kara asked, afraid to know the answer.

 

“She… she broke down for a while. Spent her time eating tater tots and wearing a nightgown that she never changed. I spent some time in Metropolis with her. All of a sudden she just… stood up, and she started living her life again. She said that she’d dreamed of Clark gloating at her because she couldn’t live without him, and her sense of competition kicked in,” Alex said, shrugging.

 

Kara laughed, throwing her head back.

 

“That is… that’s the most Lois thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, chuckling. “She’s the only person I know with a sense of competition strong enough to combat grief.”

 

Alex smiled for a moment, but then it faded.

 

“Lena… you know, she was pretty broken up when you left,” Alex said, hesitantly.

 

Kara looked at her quizzically for a moment.

 

“I know,” she said. “Or I guess I knew she was likely to find it difficult. Did you… did you guys talk a lot, while I was away?”

 

“Do you mean did we talk about the fact that you two were fucking non-stop the last two weeks you were on Earth?”

 

Kara winced.

 

“I kind of hoped it hadn’t come up,” Kara said. The pod started shooting through Earth’s atmosphere, and Kara both marvelled at, and shrank away from, the inferno outside. 

 

“You have a lot of burn scars,” Alex said, changing the subject for a moment.

 

“I do,” Kara said. “Hopefully they’ll fade now that I’m in a yellow sun system. But they might not. I still have this scar from when I was a kid,” she said, tapping her forehead just over her left eyebrow. “They might never heal.”

 

“I think they should. Especially with the level of exposure you’re about to have to the sun. And if most of the injuries are recent, they should fade.”

 

“We’ll see,” Kara said, shrugging. “It’s not that important.”

 

“I know,” Alex said, looking at her intently. “But you shouldn’t have to carry the scars.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

Kara looked away, thinking, and Alex fell silent for a moment as they passed the Moon, the sea of tranquillity clearly visible from the viewscreens.

 

“So, Lena. You didn’t tell me about you two,” Alex said. “Why is that? You’re not ashamed, are you?”

 

“No!” Kara exclaimed, indignant. “I just… I thought you would think less of me.”

 

“Why would I think less of you?” Alex asked, puzzled.

 

“I… I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have slept with her. I shouldn’t have done what she asked, because I knew that it would just hurt her more in the long term. I should have been stronger.”

 

“Oh, Kara. That’s just… dumb. She loves you, and I think you two doing what you did, even just for those two weeks? It gave her something to focus on.”

 

“Did she catch the virus?” Kara asked.

 

“No, she didn’t,” Alex confirmed. “Sort of the opposite,” she said.

 

“What does that mean?” Kara asked.

 

“I’ll leave Lena to share that particular piece of information,” Alex said.

 

The journey took almost a day and a half, and they took turns using the bunk. When they were close enough to Sol, they stopped. They had already turned off all the viewscreens and turned the radiation shields to maximum, because Alex’s human body couldn’t cope with the light and radiation from the sun at that close distance.

 

Alex did some complicated science with Kal’s pod, somehow managing to return the tiny section of Phantom Zone to where it belonged, and then they gave him a transfusion of Kara’s blood before dressing him in the spacesuit.

 

“Wish me luck,” Kara said, slipping her own helmet over her head and securing the locks.

 

“Good luck,” Alex said. “Come back safe, Supergirl.”

 

Kara grinned, stepping into the airlock carrying Kal effortlessly. Once the inside door was locked, Kara stepped out into the vacuum of space, Kal in her arms. She used the suit’s thrusters and sent them closer to the sun, which was already blinding. She closed her eyes, letting her other senses guide her, and soon enough the spacesuit beeped, indicating that it was at maximum tolerance for radiation and heat. She floated there, holding Kal’s hand and allowing him to float, too. She fell into a sort of euphoric daze, the sun filling her cells with energy and radiation that made her feel stronger, more powerful than she had ever been. Before she knew it, the alarm in her suit started sounding, telling her that it was time to return. She floated lazily for another moment, and then pulled Kal’s unconscious body close to hers, shooting back to the ship. She opened the airlock, pulling them both inside, and closed the outer door, waiting for decontamination before they stepped back inside. Alex helped her to get Kal back into his stasis chamber, leaving the lid off since it was no longer holding him static. They listened to his easy breathing, smiling at each other. Alex ran some tests on his blood and listened to his heart, nodding as she noted down some numbers.

 

“He’s definitely better. His breathing was off, before, and he was in so much pain. It was horrible to watch.”

 

“Thank Rao,” Kara said, breathing deeply. “I really thought we were going to lose him.”

 

“Not on my watch,” Alex said grimly.

 

“Thank you, Alex,” Kara said, squeezing her sister’s hand delicately.

 

Kara slept like the dead that ‘night’ until Alex woke her so that she could have the bed, and then she dozed in her chair until it was time to repeat Kal’s treatment. He was stronger after the second day, and they began to feel more and more optimistic. Seeing Alex again, talking to her about what had happened while she was away, listening to her stories about the DEO and about Maggie and Laura – it made her feel like she was truly at home again.

 

They repeated the treatment twice more after that day, and on the fifth day Kal woke while Kara was asleep.

 

“Kara? Kara?”

 

Kara stirred, smiling as she felt the strength coursing through her body.

 

“Hey, cuz,” she said, drunkenly, still more than half-asleep.

 

“Hey yourself,” he said, a smile in his voice. “You gonna wake up for me?”

 

It took a moment, but as his voice started to register with her, she shot straight up, head-butting him in the process.

 

“Ow,” she said, and it was echoed by Clark.

 

“What kind of a welcome is that?” he asked, standing up straight. Kara turned to him, jumping up and throwing her arms around him.

 

“Kal!”

 

He winced, pulling away as she squealed.

 

“Hey, Kar. I don’t know about you, but my hearing is really, really sharp right now. Could you turn it down a notch?”

 

Alex sniggered from behind him and Kara shot her a glare.

 

“Shut it, Danvers,” she said.

 

She stood back, taking in her cousin looking strong and healthy.

 

“How are you feeling?” she asked, checking him over with her x-ray vision.

 

“I feel amazing, Kara. Alex says we’ve been out there, just floating near the sun this whole time?”

 

“Yeah,” Kara said. “It was cool. We didn’t even need the oxygen. We were fine, just living on the sun’s rays. I think that we could survive inside the sun, but I don’t really want to try it just in case.”

 

Kal smiled.

 

“I don’t think I’ll be doing that any time soon,” he said, laughing. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”

 

Kara checked that they were okay to go, and they turned back towards Earth, the ship picking up speed from the sun’s rays and its own engines. Kara set the autopilot and they ate some warmed rations, Kal eating piles of food to fuel his healing body. He mostly spoke to Alex, getting updates on what had happened after her was struck down by the Dominator virus. He laughed for twenty minutes when Alex told him about Lois’s dream epiphany, the others along with him, and Kara had to lie down for a while after that because she was dizzy from giggling.

 

They slept in shifts, using Kal’s stasis pod as a second bed. Kara slept last, waking Alex in the early hours of the morning, Earth time, and she fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

 

***

 

“Right… there… Kara…” Lena gasped, spread out underneath Kara like a gift. Kara tilted her hips, changing the angle of the toy slightly, pressing forward as Lena dragged her nails down Kara’s back. The toy was inside her, too, and she strained, trying not to come right away, wanting to drag it out for Lena. Even with her attempt at self-restraint, it was only a few minutes before they both came apart, and Kara removed the toy, laughing as they both twitched. She wrapped Lena in her arms, kissing the top of her head, breathing in the smell of her.

 

“I love you,” Lena said, half-asleep.

 

“I love you too,” Kara said, hugging Lena a little closer, squeezing her more tightly than she would normally. She could feel Lena’s heart hammering against her. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

 

“Me too,” Lena said, hiding her face in Kara’s hair.

 

They fell asleep for a while and then got up before dawn. Kara sat cross-legged on a soft mat and undertook her morning ritual to Rao, Lena watching her from a comfortable chair, wrapped up in a soft blanket. She had a mug of coffee cupped in her hands, and her hair was blowing lazily in the gentle breeze.

 

Kara smiled, thanking Rao even more gratefully, because even if this were her last week on Earth, it might just have been one of the best. She had spent almost all of the last week with Lena, either in bed or having meals. She had dragged herself away a few times to eat with the Superfriends, but once each night was over she returned to Lena’s bed.

 

They ate a long, leisurely breakfast and headed to the roof, to Lena’s private pool and then her hot tub, where they made love lazily, not caring if they ended up on the front page of a National City newspaper.

 

“What happens if you like your Kryptonian buddies better than your friends here?” Lena asked, sitting on Kara’s lap, playing with her hair aimlessly. Her breasts were floating a little in the water, and it was entertaining Kara endlessly.

 

“I’ll just go and become their queen, you know? Take over their society, let them worship me. You Earthlings can suck it,” Kara said flippantly.

 

“Fine,” Lena said. “But I’m not doing that thing with my tongue again.”

 

“No!” Kara protested. Lena snickered. “I always knew you’d show your true colours eventually, Luthor!” Kara said, in her Supergirl voice, hands on her hips.

 

“Please, Supergirl. I didn’t mean to be so… naughty,” Lena said, putting her finger to her lip and fluttering her eyelashes.

 

“You didn’t?” Kara asked.

 

Lena shook her head. Kara sighed.

 

“I suppose I can let you off with a warning,” she said, sliding her fingers inside of Lena gently, smiling as Lena took in a sharp breath. She began to move her hand slowly, relishing the warmth inside of Lena, the stretch and feel of her. Lena began to gasp, moving her hips, and Kara changed her angle a little, bringing her other hand around to massage Lena. She came soon after that, her head thrown back, and Kara thought, in that moment, that she’d never seen anything so beautiful in her whole life. She murmured her love into Lena’s mouth, and her heart was fuller that day than any before or since.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex, Kal and Kara return to Earth, and Kara is finally reunited with Lena, leading to some surprising revelations - some good, and some bad.

* * *

Kara, Alex and Kal arrived at the same space station Kara had arrived at before, ordered by the DEO to be checked out by the new off-world border authority. Kara and Alex were able to show their wristbands and had to undergo a couple of tests only, but the soldiers kept Kal for most of that day, interrogating him to ensure he wasn’t some sort of Dominator plot to further damage the life of humans on Earth. J’onn had obtained permission from the President for their mission to revive Superman, and this odd little border department knew that, but they still insisted. Kara couldn’t blame them, under the circumstances. She was just glad it wasn’t her opposite the expressionless military bureaucrat she’d met earlier in the week.

 

Once Kal was released, Kara and Alex climbed to their feet wearily, and they made their way (escorted, of course) to the airlock and into their ship. Their journey back to National City didn’t take long, and they set down on the helipad, Alex having called ahead to request an escort (but fewer threatening faceless soldiers this time, she promised). They stepped out of the craft cautiously, finding it dark and subdued in National City. As Kara closed the door of the ship behind them, she heard running footsteps and turned to see Lois Lane launch herself at Clark, kissing him frantically. When she dropped back down to her feet, she thumped him, hard, on the chest. Kara and Alex laughed quietly, unwilling to risk Lois’s ire.

 

“You dumb lump of corn! I’m the one who dies first, Smallville! We agreed on that years ago!” Lois yelled, pulling him off balance by the neck of his suit. “You’re supposed to live forever, you stupid Kryptonian.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Kal murmured, kissing her hair, taking a deep breath. He looked completely serene in that moment, and Kara’s heart thumped as she thought about Lena. She had to see her. Surely she could go, now?

 

They made their way back into the DEO, finding an emotional staff lining up to greet Kara and Kal, officially welcoming them back. Kara stood, frozen, as the entirety of the DEO lined up neatly in front of them, and saluted in one smooth movement. She found that there were tears in her eyes, and when she looked at Kal, his eyes were suspiciously shiny. They shook hands with as many of the agents as they could, Kara absently noticing that there were more red wristbands than green. She had no idea what that meant for the future of the planet, but she figured it wasn’t good.

 

J’onn insisted she sit in as he briefed Kal on what happened since he was incapacitated. Lois had a green wristband, but Kal’s was red, since he’d contracted the original virus. It hadn’t killed him because of the DEO’s intervention, but it had the same effect as the mutated virus; it destroyed his ability to procreate. Kara made a mental note to find the blueprints she’d stashed in her ship to see if it was feasible for them to replicate the Kryptonian’s birthing pods.  

 

By the time the briefing was over, Kara was fidgeting. J’onn finally took pity on her, and ordered Alex to take her home. Kara wanted to just fly away, but he asked her to go home before flying anywhere. Her supersuit was still in her apartment, it seemed. Kara had packed up most of her belongings, expecting the DEO to put them into storage, but it appeared that they had just kept the apartment for her. Alex helped her upstairs with the few things she’d taken from the ship. Alex opened her front door, passing the key to Kara, and switched on the light.

 

Her apartment smelled just like it used to, like coffee and pastries and all sorts of other sweet things. Kara looked at Alex, puzzled.

 

“Why does it smell so fresh in here?” she asked. She could smell bread and… cinnamon rolls?

 

“Maggie and I may have come by earlier and baked some stuff for you, in case you were coming home. I filled your cupboards, too, because I knew you’d be hungry. I didn’t want you coming back to a neglected, dusty apartment,” Alex replied.

 

Kara hugged her tightly.

 

“I love you, sis,” she said, crying a little into Alex’s hair. “You’re amazing.”

 

They stayed there for a little while before either let go, and then Kara stood back, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

 

“Ew, Kara. Get a tissue or something,” Alex said, screwing her nose up.

 

“Whatever,” Kara said. She rolled her eyes.

 

“You are so gross,” Alex complained.

 

“You love me,” Kara said.

 

“I do,” Alex admitted. They both grinned, and then Kara bounced on her toes. Her heart was yelling at her. She _needed_ to see Lena.

 

“You’re gonna come out of your own skin soon, if you keep moving like that,” Alex said, eyeing her in amusement.

 

“I miss her so much,” Kara said. Her voice came out high and tight. “I miss her.”

 

“Go,” Alex said simply. Kara whooshed out of her gross outfit, freshening up and changing into her supersuit in less than 30 seconds. She stopped in front of Alex, hugging her tightly again.

 

“Go home to your family, Alex. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kara said, smiling.

 

“Sure thing, Supergirl. I will be here at the crack of dawn. If you’re not here, warn Little Luthor that we’re coming by for breakfast,” Alex said.

 

“Okay,” Kara said, floating backwards and then kicking off, just outside the window. She was at LCorp in a minute, where she was astonished to find that Lena wasn’t working. She breathed in, concentrating on Lena, and she began to hear the heartbeat she’d been missing for 5 years. She moved in the direction of the sound, and fifteen seconds later she found herself hovering outside of an unfamiliar penthouse apartment. Lena had moved. Kara heard her cape snap in the wind, and the heartbeat stuttered. A second later, Lena opened the balcony door. She was wearing a set of lilac satin pyjamas, and there were glasses perched on her nose. She smelled of books and coffee. Kara moved closer, touching down in front of Lena as gently as she could. Lena’s hands were shaking, and she lifted them slowly to Kara’s face, cupping her cheeks gently.

 

“Is it really you?” she asked, her voice hoarse. Kara nodded, temporarily struck dumb. “You’ve been gone for five years.” Kara nodded.

 

Lena tried to slap her, and Kara caught her wrist gently.

 

“Wait until we’re under the red sun lamps for that, sweetheart. I don’t want you to break anything.”

 

Lena stared at her.

 

“You came back.”

 

Kara nodded.

 

Lena stood to one side, indicating that Kara should come in. She did, walking silently, and Lena pulled the glass doors closed behind them. She turned off the lights in the living area and pulled Kara by the hand to the end of the corridor, where there was a huge bed in a comfortable room with softly glowing lamps in each corner. Lena flipped a switch and the lights turned red.

 

Lena started to pull down the zipper on Kara’s suit, peeling it from her body carefully. She gestured impatiently for Kara to kick off her boots, then she carefully removed her underwear and sports bra. She took her own clothes off in seconds, never taking her eyes off Kara.

 

Kara opened her mouth to talk, but Lena shook her head, and she closed her mouth with a snap. Lena moved closer, gently cupping the back of Kara’s neck and pulling her down for a long, slow kiss. The kiss escalated and they tasted each other’s mouths eagerly, hands roaming. The room echoed with their moans as Lena pushed Kara back onto the bed. Their touches grew frantic and Kara suddenly pulled back, dropping to her knees at the side of the bed. Lena knew what to do, scooting forward, spreading herself open with her feet on the floor, and Kara tasted her, kissing her and sucking and biting as Lena writhed, trying to keep her ass on the bed. Kara moved a little, placing one hand on Lena’s abdomen, and then she used her other to slide inside of Lena. It was as amazing as the first time, the feeling making Kara’s heart thump, and it was hard to tell who moaned louder. Kara redoubled her efforts, using her tongue on Lena again, establishing a rhythm with her fingers, and Lena came quickly, her eyes closed, back arched.

 

After a few seconds she sat up, pulling Kara to the bed and flipping her onto her back, moving her hands and mouth all over Kara. She sounded desperate, and Kara tipped her head up for a second, about to ask if she was okay, but Lena shook her head again, eyes wide. Kara subsided, and Lena made her see stars. She had to keep her eyes tightly closed, keeping one arm over them, to avoid shooting her heat vision at the ceiling. She turned her head when she recovered, and kissed Lena enthusiastically. Lena kissed back fervently until Kara realised that there were tears on her lips.

 

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

 

Lena cried harder, and Kara pulled her close, running her hands up and down Lena’s back. After a moment or two, she realised it was a release, a relief from the stress Lena had undoubtedly been under, and Kara just held on, murmuring in _Kryptahniuo_ , poetry and words of love that gradually soothed Lena.

 

“You left,” Lena said, after a while, mumbling into Kara’s collarbone.

 

“Yeah,” Kara sighed.

 

“You left me,” Lena said.

 

“I know,” Kara said.

 

“You came back,” Lena said, gripping her more tightly.

 

“Yeah,” Kara said.

 

“Okay,” Lena said, nodding. “Okay.”

 

She fell asleep almost immediately after that, so Kara held her close, kissing her head and noting from her green wristband that she hadn’t contracted either virus. At least she’d been spared. Kara followed Lena into sleep shortly after, her body relaxing fully for the first time since she’d left Earth, soothed by the thump of the heart she’d been yearning after for five years.

 

***

 

Kara woke up slowly, her unconscious mind savouring the slow ascent to consciousness, knowing that she was finally at home, where she belonged. She burrowed further into the warmth next to her, her mind processing the scent of sex and of the one she loved, and she must have dozed off. She emerged from her sleep a little later, and found the bed next to her empty. However, she could hear a number of heartbeats in the apartment, and she smiled as she remembered that she hadn’t warned Lena to expect Alex and Maggie first thing. Lena didn’t like to be surprised.

 

Kara showered quickly, revelling in the intense pressure from Lena’s shower. Only the best for a Luthor, she thought, smiling widely. She dressed in some of Lena’s leisure clothes, leaving her super-suit strewn around in pieces on Lena’s bedroom floor. Somehow seeing their clothes mixed up together on the floor made her feel secure and a little smug, truth be told.

 

Kara stepped out of the room and into the corridor, turning the corner into the living area. As she suspected, Alex and Maggie were there, sitting at the breakfast bar as Lena served up eggs and bacon and waffles. Lena looked up at her, smiling luminously, and Kara couldn’t help but smile back. She felt like the smile was going to split her cheeks.

 

“Good morning, Little Danvers,” Maggie said, first. She stood and crossed the room to Kara, drawing her into a hug. “You have been badly missed, kiddo,” she whispered, directly into Kara’s ear.

 

“Thank you for looking after my girls for me,” Kara said, indicating Alex and Lena.

 

“Easy as pie,” Maggie said, smiling. She tugged Kara towards the breakfast bar and she gave Alex a quick hug. Kara moved behind the breakfast bar and wrapped her arms around Lena’s waist from behind. She kissed her neck, revelling in the tiny hitch in Lena’s breath.

 

“Good morning, _zhao_ ,” Kara murmured.

 

“Good morning yourself,” Lena said, turning her head a little to look at Kara fondly. “Did you sleep well?”

 

Kara grinned.

 

“I did. I was really tired for some reason,” she said, squeezing Lena a little tighter.

 

Alex and Maggie were looking at them, frowning slightly, but Kara was too interested in how Lena felt in her arms, so she paid no attention.

 

Kara kissed the side of Lena’s neck.

 

“I love you,” she breathed.

 

“Ditto,” Lena said, smiling.

 

Maggie called out then, surprising Kara.

 

“Hey Laura, come in, will ya? Breakfast is served. And bring your cousin,” Maggie said.

 

Lena stiffened in Kara’s arms, and Kara gave her a quizzical look, and then looked at Maggie.

 

“Cousin?” she asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.

 

“Kara, there’s… something I need to tell you,” Lena said, but then she didn’t have to.

 

A little boy walked in. He had Lena’s jet-black hair, pale white skin, and slight build, but he had Alura’s eyes. Kara stared at him.

 

Laura, Maggie and Alex’s kid, came running to them, hitting Maggie in her middle, hard.

 

“Laura, this is your aunt Kara. She’s been away for a long time, searching for her family, but now she’s home. Go say hello,” Maggie said, wheezing slightly.

 

The little boy moved to Lena’s side. Kara let her go, stepping back to give the boy space. He shrank into his mother’s side, hiding his face in her shirt. In the meantime, Laura stepped up to Kara, holding out her hand. Kara took it, completely blindsided by all of it. She smiled down at the kid. She looked like a perfect mix of Alex and Maggie, right down to the dimples when she smiled.

 

“Hey, beautiful,” Kara said, smiling her Supergirl smile. “You’re my niece, then? The little one who’s made your moms so happy?”

 

Laura smiled shyly, nodding.

 

“Well I am very, very happy to meet you,” Kara said, crouching down next to Laura and smiling. “You have been looking after your moms the whole time I’ve been gone. Do you know what that means?”

 

Laura shook her head, biting her lip.

 

“It means that I’m very proud of you for stepping in and looking after them. Because I like to make sure that my friends and family are safe, and you’ve been keeping them safe. So, thank you, Laura,” Kara said, gravely.

 

Laura’s eyes widened and she puffed her chest out proudly.

 

“Thank you, Aunt Kawa,” she said. It was so disgustingly adorable that Kara almost died on the spot. Then a voice piped up behind her.

 

“I helped, too. I looked after my mom and aunt Alex and Maggie, too.”

 

Kara turned, holding out her hand for the little guy – her son – to take. They shook hands, just as gravely as she had with Laura.

 

“Well then, young man. It seems like I owe you my thanks, too. Because your mom is one of the most important people in my life, too, and I was hoping someone would step up and keep her safe for me. So I’m very, very proud of you, too.”

 

He looked away, his face reddening.

 

“I’m Karl,” he said. “Are you my other mother?” He turned to her and fixed her with an intent stare.

 

Kara’s heart thumped. Kar-El. Karl. He was hers. How was that even possible? She looked at Lena, who nodded permission, smiling nervously.

 

“Yes, Karl. I’m your other mother. I’m very pleased to meet you, my son,” she said. He threw himself forward, his head hitting her just above her pubic bone. She slipped down and hugged him tight, his tiny body straining to hug back. His torso felt tiny, like it was thinner than her arms, and she wept quietly as she held her son for the first time in her life.

 

Lena wrapped herself around both of them, all in a huddle on the floor, and both women cried, kissing each other over their son’s head while the little guy clung to them both. Kara still didn’t notice the concerned looks from Alex and Maggie.

 

It was a little later when everything settled enough that they could all sit and eat, and the food was a little cool, but Lena shook her head when Kara went to lift her glasses to heat it, so they waited until she’d used the microwave. Kara was a little surprised, used to using her powers when the option presented itself (ie the rare day or so when she passed through a yellow sun system, and she silently reminded herself that she was back on Earth, now. Back home.) Her eyes fell on her son, almost five years old, and he took her breath away. He had Alura and Astra’s eyes, that grey-green-blue that seemed to change dependant on the colours around it.

 

When they finished eating, Maggie and Alex said they were taking Karl and Laura for a swim and then to an ice cream parlour.

 

“You guys can catch up,” Maggie said, significantly.

 

“Thank you, Maggie,” Lena said.

 

They said goodbye to Alex and Maggie and the kids, and then Lena turned to Kara.

 

“In the bedroom,” she said, crisply. Kara grinned foolishly, but followed Lena without comment. As they entered the bedroom, Lena clicked a switch and the red sun lights switched on, again. Kara smiled, about to pull Lena to her, when the woman turned and punched her square in the jaw.

 

Kara staggered back, remembering suddenly that Lena’s initial response to seeing her had been to try to slap her. It seemed that she wasn’t off the hook for leaving. She rubbed her jaw, standing up straight in front of Lena again.

 

“Do you want to go again?” she asked, calmly.

 

Lena stared at her.

 

“I… didn’t that hurt?” she asked. Kara hadn’t even stumbled.

 

“I’ve been hurt far worse in the last few years,” Kara said tonelessly. “I’m afraid being hit with a fist doesn’t really faze me much. Not anymore.”

 

“Okay,” Lena said, crossing her arms. “You clearly have a story to tell. And I will be happy to listen. But first of all – you left, Kara. You left. You left me and I was heartbroken. I think I had convinced myself that you were going to stay for me. So I get to be mad.”

 

“Of course,” Kara said sadly. “But before you get back to the physical chastisement, could you tell me how in Rao’s name we ended up with a son?”

 

Lena sat on the edge of the bed.

 

“It was about 5 weeks after you left. I had been working too hard – you know how I can get – and I started to feel sick nearly all the time. Jess was beside herself with worry, because I lost a lot of weight all in one go, and I just… I had no idea that it was even possible.”

 

“So how did you find out?”

 

“I was at a fundraiser for the ARC – Alien Rights Coalition – and I felt strange, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was at the DEO.”

 

“How…?”

 

“Your director, J’onn? He was at the party, wearing someone else’s face. Security because the gala had been threatened by Cadmus. He heard Karl’s heartbeat, and when I fainted he put two and two together. Apparently the baby, along with my very vivid memories of our time together, gave him the full picture. Alex did plenty of tests on me, and we found that I was carrying a half-Kryptonian baby. It was the night we… it needed your bodily fluids to mix with mine, and then apparently your cells became better swimmers than any human sperm could ever hope to be,” Lena said, blushing a little.

 

Kara remembered that night vividly. After their first time together, in which she felt like she’d fumbled through, she did some research on how women have sex with one another. She asked Lena innocently that night…

 

_“What is tribbing, babe?”_

_Lena stared at her, open-mouthed._

_“Um… where did that come from?” she managed, after a few minutes._

_“Um… I did some reading?” Kara said, adjusting her glasses. “Apparently it’s also called scissoring?”_

_“Oh,” Lena said. “Okay. I think it’s probably easier if I show you.”_

_Kara smiled enthusiastically, and Lena showed her exactly what tribbing was. At the first touch of Lena’s wetness on hers, she started to moan, and her orgasm came so quickly that Lena teased her about it for the next few days._

 

“So, I guess I should never have asked you about tribbing, then?” Kara asked, lightly.

 

“Perhaps we should have tried something else that night,” Lena joked.

 

Kara smiled at her.

 

“I know you might want to kill me right now, but I love you so much and I am so, so proud of you for raising our son to be such a strong little guy. I never ever expected this but I couldn’t be happier.”

 

Kara kneeled in front of Lena, kissing her hands and holding them to her forehead.

 

“I missed you so much,” she said.

 

Lena sighed.

 

“Damn you, Kara,” she muttered. “I can’t even be mad at you. You’re just such a puppy.”

 

“You get to be as angry as you want. I left you, and not only that I got you pregnant. If I’d had any idea, Lena, I never would have left. I hope you know that.”

 

“I do,” Lena said, tugging Kara to her feet. “I do.”

 

She pulled Kara closer, and Kara took the hint and wrapped Lena in her arms, trying to surround her, envelop her, and Lena began to cry, first softly, and then harder and harder. She hammered her fists on Kara’s chest, cursing her, and then kissed her frantically. Kara let her do what she wished, knowing she had no reason to protest. She had left, and Lena had been left alone to raise their son for five years. Sure, Kara had spent that time being tortured to the point of death before being healed just enough that her captors could start the torture anew, but that was her own fault. She had had enough warnings – the diary one of the colonists had left behind cursing her mother’s name, and the rumours she’d heard on her long journey about how the Kryptonians had turned rabid. She’d done that to herself, but she’d also hurt Lena in the process, leaving her alone after only two weeks of love between them, and worst of all, leaving her pregnant.

 

“Look, Kara. There’s something I need to tell you,” Lena said, eventually, her forehead still against Kara’s shoulder.

 

“You can tell me anything,” Kara said, looking at Lena sincerely.

 

“I… I’ve been seeing someone. For a while. It’s kind of serious.”

 

Kara pulled back, staring. She suddenly realised that she could feel a ring on Lena’s left hand. She looked down at their joined hands, finding a large diamond, tastefully cut, set in a platinum band.

 

“You’re engaged,” Kara said, dully.

 

Lena nodded. She looked sad and guilty.

 

Kara swallowed and then smiled.

 

“You don’t have to apologise,” Kara said. “I left. Whatever… however you managed to get through that, especially while raising a son… I would never blame you for that. So, who’s the lucky guy or girl who won Lena Luthor’s heart?”

 

Kara had thought, after all this time, that she’d already experienced every type of pain a person could go through. She was a pain connoisseur. She had thought that no pain could be worse than losing Krypton, than losing her entire culture. She had found a small colony of her people, and they had treated her as responsible for the crimes of her family when all she had wanted to do was help them. But even several years of torture could never measure up to _this_ pain. To returning to Earth, reuniting with the woman she loved, meeting their child, and then realising that this family, her son and the woman she loved – they weren’t _her_ family, and never would be. She shut her eyes briefly, willing her tears to stay unshed for now.

 

“Her name… it’s Sam. Sam Arias. She came into my life at just the right time, and she has a daughter, Ruby. We… we’re a family, Kara.”

 

Kara nodded, swallowing.

 

“I understand. I… I’m really happy for you, Lee,” she said, backing away slowly. She used her superspeed to change into her supersuit, leaving her borrowed clothes folded neatly on the bed. She stopped in front of Lena briefly.

 

“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to see Karl sometimes. You can give me a call or a text or whatever. Give my best to your family.”

 

Lena held out a hand, beseeching, but Kara turned away. She was in the air before Lena could get a word out, and she was on the edge of the atmosphere seconds after that, screaming into the endless void of space. When she was low enough to feel gravity again, she let her body fall straight down on re-entry. She landed in the ocean and she floated underwater for hours. Her cells were fully fuelled by the yellow sun, now, and that meant she didn’t need oxygen, because she was essentially a plant in Kryptonian form. She floated, letting whales and huge schools of krill nudge past her, and she cried her tears out into the ocean where no-one could see them.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heartbreak continues. Kara goes to see the President and meets an old friend, and goes to Lena's apartment to have dinner with her son and his mother.

* * *

Lena called her four times that day. Kara didn’t answer. She wasn’t ready. She wanted to be mad at Lena for not telling her right away about her new family. For kissing her, for sleeping with her when Lena was engaged to someone else. But she couldn’t. Because she was gone for five years. For Kara, that might not amount to much, because her lifespan was likely to be much longer than a human’s. But for Lena 5 years was a long time, and not only had Kara left her, but she’d left her pregnant, too. So Kara couldn’t exactly blame her. But she was hurt. Hurting. More broken than she’d ever been, in many ways, because everything she’d done – crossing galaxies to find and help her people, coming home to be reunited with her family – it had amounted to less than nothing. She’d lost _Lena_. Lena had been the person who had kept her alive in that hellhole on a nameless planet under a red sun. The memory of their short time together, the look in Lena’s eye when she told Kara she loved her, the way she felt – everything about her – it had kept Kara sane. She hadn’t even missed _Alex_ as much as she’d missed Lena. She would never have thought that possible, before. Alex had always been the centre of her universe, and she hadn’t even noticed when Lena slipped into that spot effortlessly.

 

Alex knocked on the door later that day, and Kara opened it, still in her supersuit, sporting bits of seaweed and the remains of her lunch (a three-pizza sandwich with extra marinara sauce) all over her. She knew she looked horrible, but she couldn’t bring herself to try to get presentable. It was like her world had ended all over again, only this time she’d lost a lover as well as her entire world.

 

“Oh, Kara,” Alex said, taking in her dishevelled figure with pursed lips. “I am so sorry. She told you about Sam, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” Kara said, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. She brushed them away. “You knew about her?”

 

“I did,” Alex said. “I’m sorry. Lena told me it was her story to tell, and I couldn’t really disagree with that. I didn’t know she was going to… you know, have you stay, last night. I mean, I thought you might stay, but not sleep together.”

 

“You could have just given me a heads up, Alex. That I shouldn’t be too happy, or think that I had a family. I spent a few hours this morning thinking that Lena was taking me back, that I could have a future with her and Karl, and now… now I have nothing. The woman I love doesn’t want me anymore, and Rao knows if she even wants me to know our son.”

 

Alex sat down on the couch, patting the seat beside her.

 

“I owed her the opportunity to tell you about her life herself, Kara. Her sleeping with you – well, I didn’t anticipate that.” Alex shrugged sadly. “If she didn’t want you to know Karl, she wouldn’t have introduced you to him. And what part of her dragging you to her bed last night made you think she doesn’t want you?” Alex asked, gently.

 

“Wanting to have sex with me and being in love with me are two different things. She told me that this new woman has a kid, and that they’re a family, Alex. I can’t – I won’t – interfere with that. Lena deserves to be happy, and I have no right to make demands of her when I left her alone for five years.”

 

“Kara, for someone so much more intelligent than a human, you can be really obtuse. She might be with Sam, she might think she loves her, but their relationship – it’s nowhere near what you guys have. I think that you should be quietly hopeful. Sam won’t last against you,” Alex said.

 

“I wouldn’t do that, Alex,” Kara protested. “I would never want to split them up. I don’t ever want to be responsible for hurting Lena again.”

 

“Hmm,” Alex said, raising an eyebrow. “They’ve been together for a year, Kara, and they still don’t live together. Can you honestly tell me that you guys wouldn’t have U-Hauled within a couple of weeks if you hadn’t left?”

 

Kara shifted uncomfortably. “I… I don’t know, Alex. I love her, and the whole time I was away I hoped we’d be together for good, but… I can’t break up her relationship. If I’d known she was with someone – I would never have slept with her. You know I wouldn’t do that.”

 

“I do, Kara. But I also know how much she loves you, and how much she missed you this whole time. Her relationship with Sam – it’s always been clear to Maggie and to me that it was only a rebound. She’s a placeholder. She’s great, don’t get me wrong – but she’s not you.”

 

“Thanks, Alex,” Kara said.

 

Alex pulled a piece of algae from Kara’s hair.

 

“Now, Supergirl. Time for a shower. And put your suit in the wash, too. You smell kinda fishy,” Alex said, crinkling her nose.

 

Kara nodded wearily, going off at normal speed to wash and change. When she was finished, her hair brushed and half-dry, she returned to the couch, finding Alex just opening up cartons of Chinese food.

 

“Extra potstickers, because I love you and I missed you,” Alex said. Kara pulled her into a side hug while surreptitiously picking up her first potsticker, and she stuffed it in her mouth while holding on to her sister.

 

“I wub you too,” she said, mouth full, deliberately gross. Alex sniggered.

 

They watched some movies together that night before Alex had to leave.

 

“I told Laura I’d kiss her goodnight, even if she was asleep already. So you get some sleep, baby sis, and I’ll see you tomorrow,” Alex said, kissing Kara’s forehead. “I love you.”

 

“I love you too,” Kara said, sighing.

 

She barely slept that night and when she did, her dreams were full of a little boy with her mother’s eyes, crying for his other mom. She woke with tears in her own eyes, and she prayed to Rao that her son would be happy, no matter whether she was in his life or not.

 

She spent the day visiting the DEO, catching up with old friends, including Winn. He was tired, his wristband red, and he looked as if he’d lost his whole world.

 

“What happened?” Kara asked, touching his wrist delicately. Her own green band stood out against the red.

 

“I… I caught the mutated virus. I was here, after all,” he said, shaking his head. “I never realised that working here would open me up to alien diseases as well as actual bodily harm.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Winn,” Kara said.

 

“Kar, it’s not your fault. Everything you did, you did to help people. It was the Dominators who did this. I’m glad you weren’t here – you might have ended up in a coma like Superman, and then there would have been no-one to save you both. You being away – it was probably the best thing, in the circumstances,” Winn said, sincerely. Tears were brimming in his eyes.

 

“Did something else happen?” Kara asked, noting that his hands were trembling.

 

“I… Lyra was caught up in the first wave of the disease. She died while I was quarantined. I couldn’t even arrange a memorial for her, because J’onn wouldn’t let me out,” Winn said. He let the tears run down his face, and Kara wiped them away delicately.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Kara repeated. “This is so messed up.”

 

“Yeah,” he said, wiping away the rest of his tears. “I am sorry I wasn’t happier to see you, yesterday. I should have come to see you and Superman.”

 

“Winn, you don’t owe me an apology. Remember how much of a bitch I was after Mon-El left Earth? And honestly I’m not sure I even loved him.”

 

“He was kind of a dick,” Winn said, nodding sagely.

 

“Yeah, he was,” Kara said, laughing. “Chalk that one up to experience and the discovery of alien alcohol.”

 

“He was very handsome, in a boring sort of way,” Winn said.

 

“Thanks for throwing me a bone, Winn, but handsome or not, he was an ass. He was a misogynist and all of his so-called heroics were just an attempt to get in my pants. Which, by the way, ew,” Kara said.

 

“So I’m guessing you didn’t find him in out there in the universe and fall madly in love with him again?” Winn said, smiling a little.

 

“Not so much. There is… was, someone, before I left. But that’s over, apparently,” Kara said. She sighed heavily.

 

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Lena Luthor’s sudden acceptance into the DEO family about 5 years back, would it? Or a little dude by the name of Kar…l?” Winn asked, one eyebrow up.

 

“Oh. So you know, then?”

 

“Yeah, I know. Lena and I are friends, now. She’s so smart! I think she’s actually smarter than me. We’ve made so many cool things. Including… oh my god, I can’t believe we haven’t shown this to you yet!”

 

Winn stood, pulling Kara after him. She allowed him to pull her along, rolling her eyes as some of the other agents laughed at Winn’s enthusiasm.

 

He pulled her into his inventing room, a room that was exactly that. It was full of odds and ends, different samples of fabric, leathers, metals, carbon fibre and other unidentifiable materials.

 

Winn pulled out a garment bag on a hanger and handed it to Kara, doing a little drumroll on the tiny area of the desk not covered in detritus.

 

“Kara Zor-El, please meet…. The supersuit, version 2.0, designed by the DEO and LCorp in an unparalleled show of co-operation and solidarity. And genius! It contains Kryptonite shielding, detachable cape, optional oxygen supply, solar power reserve – you are going to _love_ that feature the next time you end up on a red sun planet – and lead inserts for any fights with those dirty-dealin’ Daxamites.”

 

Winn smiled proudly, and Kara unzipped the bag, hanging the suit on the back of the door and standing back to take it in. It was similar in design to her current suit, except that it had pants and a segmented skirt like Wonder Woman’s. Or a Roman gladiator’s, maybe. The boots had greaves on the front, etched in metal with Kryptonian glyphs meaning honour and justice. Similarly, it had bracers on the arms, and inscribed in the same metal were the Kryptonian glyphs for peace and hope. It looked amazing, taken as an ensemble, and it even had a hood and a mask to give her oxygen in case she was exposed to gaseous Kryptonite.

 

“The hood has psychic shielding in it, to stop you being affected by any villains with mental powers, and sound blockers in case you come across someone like Siobhan again. But the hood can be tucked away under the cape when it’s not needed and no-one will know it’s there. The same with the mask. And Lena built in a few extra traps and things in some places, so make sure you check with her before you go pressing any buttons,” Winn said excitedly.

 

“Oh. I don’t know if… maybe you should just give me the schematics,” Kara said, smiling sadly. “I’m not sure she wants any visits from me right now.”

 

“I don’t think that’s true,” Winn said, gravely. “She drove herself crazy waiting for you, and she worked really hard on the suit. The shielding – that was her. She found a way to integrate it into the fibres of the suit instead of an external thing like I put together. I think she’ll want to brief you on it.”

 

“Thanks, Winn,” Kara said. “You continue to amaze me.”

 

“Aw, Kar. You say the nicest things,” he said, blushing.

 

“I missed you all so much,” she breathed. “It’s so different here than it was out there. Everyone here wants to help me, they’ve all got my back.”

 

“And out there?” Winn prompted.

 

“Not so much,” Kara said. She gave Winn an abbreviated account of her time searching for, and then finding, her people.

 

“Jesus, Kar. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that all Kryptonians (except you and Superman, of course) are batshit crazy!”

 

“Yeah,” Kara said, with an unhappy smile.

 

“I am joking, Kara. You and I both know that family is… complicated. And some really shitty stuff happened to your planet, so it’s not surprising that emotions are… high.”

 

“Thanks, Winn,” she said, touching his hand gently. “You always know how to make me feel better.”

 

He smiled at her, and just at that moment, her comm crackled to life.

 

“Supergirl?” It was Alex’s voice.

 

“Yeah?” she replied.

 

“What’s your twenty?”

 

“I’m talking to Winn,” Kara said.

 

“Okay. Can you come up to the command centre please?” Alex asked.

 

“On my way,” Kara said. She bid a quick farewell to Winn and shot to the heart of the DEO.

 

Alex turned, smiling as she saw Kara whooshing in.

 

“I’ve missed that,” she said, her hair flying back as if she were in a wind tunnel.

 

“Sure you have,” Kara said dryly, watching as paperwork flew all over the place. “Maybe you guys should change to a paperless environment?”

 

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Alex said. “We’ve just had a call from the White House.”

 

“Oh. What’s going on?” Kara asked, bouncing on her toes a little, ready to fight.

 

“The President wants to see you,” Alex said, shrugging. “Like, yesterday.”

 

“Okay. So, should I just fly right down there?”

 

“That’s the idea,” Alex said.

 

“Should I go down there on my own, or do they need to see J’onn or you?” Kara asked, frowning.

 

“Just you, Supergirl,” Alex said. “Chop chop, kid.”

 

Kara smiled at the reminder of her old mentor, and she made a mental note to look her up as soon as she had the time. She wasn’t sure if she was going to try to return to CatCo or not. Journalism didn’t seem as important as it once had.

 

She took off from the huge balcony, waving at a few of the new DEO agents who were staring, marvelling at her. It never got old, seeing that look of wonder on the faces of fully-grown adults.

 

She took off towards Washington, taking a detour for some barbecue in one of the Carolinas, and after she’d carefully cleaned her face as she flew over a river, using it as a mirror, she made the rest of the journey to DC. She landed in front of the guard post outside, not wanting to just land inside the White House and cause a security alert. The young man at the desk started at her sudden appearance.

 

“Ma’am. Good afternoon,” he said, shakily. She held out her hand and he shook it, looking entirely flustered.

 

“Hi, Private Thomas,” she said, smiling as his eyes widened in wonder at Supergirl saying his name. “I was given a message that the President wishes to see me. Could you let her know I’m here?”

 

“Of course, Ma’am,” he said, lifting the phone inside the guardhouse and tapping out a number. One of his buddies on the gate snickered at how nervous he was, and Kara smiled at him, too. He reddened.

 

“Ma’am, you can go right in. She says that the patio door is open?” the young soldier said, looking bemused.

 

“Thank you, Private Thomas,” she said, smiling. She took off and flew into the grounds, finding the open door without incident, thought the Secret Service men outside did start when she descended to land gently in front of them.

 

“At ease, gentlemen,” she said, grinning. “The President requested my presence.”

 

They smiled ruefully and stood to one side, and Kara stepped inside. It wasn’t the Oval Office, but a smaller side room that she stepped into. Inside were President Marsdin, a guard, and…

 

“Kara,” Cat Grant said, standing and holding out her arms for a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

 

Kara stepped into Cat’s embrace, squeezing her gently.

 

“Cat? What are you doing in the White House?” Kara asked.

 

“Well, since you should ask, it’s a great story,” Cat said, sitting down on an armchair as if it were a throne. “I sold CatCo to your ‘friend’ Lena, and I took a new job with the President. First, I was the Press Secretary, then I moved to Chief of Staff when Olivia won her second term.”

 

She was about to regale Kara with the whole story, it appeared, but Olivia placed a hand on her arm and she immediately stilled.

 

“Perhaps you could catch up later,” President Marsdin suggested diplomatically.

 

“Of course, darling,” Cat said, putting her hand on top of the President’s, looking up at her adoringly.

 

Kara only just held in a ‘squee’ of excitement. Her mentor and the President were a thing! It was the cutest thing!

 

“So, Supergirl. Please sit down. I’ve had some food prepared, it’ll be here shortly. Cat tells me that you use a lot of fuel when you fly.” President Marsdin took her hand for a moment, squeezing it.

 

Kara sat, sweeping her cape to one side so she didn’t accidentally choke herself by sitting on it.

 

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Madam President,” Kara said. “If I might ask, what exactly is it you need from me?”

 

“I understand that you’ve been filled in on what happened here during your absence?” the President asked.

 

“Of course,” Kara said. “I’m so terribly sorry that I wasn’t here to help.”

 

“Well, from what I understand, your return also brought back Superman, so we are, as always, in your debt.”

 

“I did what I was told,” Kara said, shaking her head. “I’m not responsible for finding a way to heal him. It was the DEO who came up with the cure – I was just the instrument.”

 

“Kara, you can go on all day about how little you deserve it, but we know you saved his ass. No-one else could have. Just take the damn compliment,” Cat drawled.

 

Kara smiled. Cat would never change. She might have a few extra wrinkles, but her edge had not dulled in any way.

 

“Anyway, I appreciate the return of both my Kryptonians, and I look forward to working with you both in the future,” the President said. Kara nodded. “I do need to ask you what happened with your people. I had harboured hopes that you might have brought back some technology that could help, along with your Kryptonian contingent, but J’onn advises me that you returned alone, and battle-scarred. Please, tell us what happened,” she said, leaning forward to touch Kara’s hand gently for a moment, her eyes intent on Kara. She was the kind of person who made you feel like you were the only person in the world when her attention was on you, and Kara had to tamp down a little glee that wanted to escape. The President wanted her story!

 

Kara told them what had happened, her tale interrupted for a short time by a platter of cheeseburgers and fries that she finished off almost single-handedly, and at the end of it, the President looked dispirited.

 

“I had hoped that… Krypton was known for its technology, and we hoped that you might have something we could use to combat the infertility. We’re okay right now, but when the millennials and their kids die off, we could lose half the population, and we have no way of knowing if the virus might affect children that are born in future. It was passing from person to person, but for all we know it could have become airborne. It’s extremely hard to diagnose.”

 

“Well, I didn’t bring much with me – I was escaping, after all – but I did grab some information crystals, and I think I have the schematics for our birthing pods. I can’t be sure if they’ll work, but I think it’s more than possible. Our reproduction was based on mixing our DNA – it didn’t have to be cells from the reproductive organs,” Kara said, thoughtfully. “I’ll need to visit the Fortress to get the information from the crystals and change them into a format Earth technology can read. But as soon as I do, I’ll make it available to you. Should I ask the DEO to start working on it right away?”

 

President Marsdin shared a significant look with Cat before turning back to Kara.

 

“I’ll send the orders to the Director myself. Have them make it their first priority. We have to combat this sterility otherwise humanity will be a footnote in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy.”

 

Kara nodded sharply.

 

“Can I do anything else for you, before I leave?” Kara asked politely.

 

“Not for now, Supergirl. Thank you for coming,” the President said. “And welcome home.”

 

“Thank you, Madam President,” Kara said, shaking her hand. The President left, then, the guard trailing her.

 

“It’s so good to see you, Kara,” Cat said, standing to leave, too. “I wish I had time to catch up properly. But I’ll be back in National City soon and we can have dinner. Carter would like to see you, I know. He was heartbroken when you left.”

 

“I was, too,” Kara said wryly. “But I would love to catch up when you have time, Madam Chief of Staff.”

 

Cat smiled smugly.

 

“I never thought I’d find anything as satisfying as a good story, but politics – god, do I get a kick out of it.”

 

Kara laughed.

 

“I never thought about it, but now, seeing you here? I totally see it. The White House better get prepared for President Grant,” Kara said.

 

“You heard about that?” Cat asked, puzzled.

 

“I heard nothing. I just can’t think of a single person who’d be a better President, other than the woman who just left this room,” Kara said. “You know, I am kind of between jobs right now, so if you have any ideas – send them my way. Things weren’t how I expected them to be when I came back,” Kara said.

 

“Things are never how we expect, Kara. We roll with the punches and one way or another, we find our place. I never expected mine to be here, of all places,” Cat said, indicating the room with a twist of her wrist, “but it’s where I belong. A little time to think might not be the worst thing.”

 

“Thank you, Miss Grant. You’re the best at advice, do you know that?” Kara said.

 

“I do,” Cat said, simply.

 

“And you’re soooo modest,” Kara quipped.

 

“Exactly. Now, come give me a hug, and go back to National City, Kara dear. I have missed you.”

 

Kara smiled and stepped forward, wrapping Cat up in her arms, and then she was gone, flying through the air at huge speeds, letting her body twist and roll in the air just for the sheer joy of it. Seeing Cat always made her feel better.

 

She got back to the DEO and went in search of her ship, which had been moved to a hangar beneath the helipad. She found the information crystals and put them in the pocket of her suit, underneath her cape. She would have to start wearing the new suit, she knew, but that probably meant seeing Lena, and she didn’t feel ready for that.

 

Apparently Rao didn’t care what she was ready for, however. She checked her phone when she arrived home, and there were another 5 missed calls from Lena. Kara listened to the messages, which were just pleas for her to call back.

 

She sighed, stripping out of her suit and into comfortable clothes. She sat down, closing her eyes, and then she called Lena.

 

“Kara! Kara, thank god. I thought you’d… I thought you were leaving again,” Lena sounded broken, and Kara felt guilty for leaving her hanging.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m not going anywhere, Lena. I just didn’t expect… I want you to be happy, you know that. I just… I’ll need some time to adjust. So, if that’s all…”

 

“No, Kara. It’s not all. Your son wants to know where you went.”

 

“I told you to let me know if I could see him or not,” Kara said, impatiently.

 

“And I’ve called you over and over and had nothing but silence in response,” Lena shot back.

 

Kara sighed heavily.

 

“Fine. What do you need from me, Lena?” she asked.

 

“Your son wants to get to know you. Sam’s at a work dinner, and I thought it would be nice if you came by for dinner. Get to know Karl a little. Do you think you can manage that?” Lena asked acerbically.

 

“Of course,” Kara said. “I would do anything for you both.”

 

“I know you would,” Lena said, whispering. “Come by as soon as you can.”

 

She hung up, and Kara stared at the phone in her hand. She got to have dinner with her son. That was something, right?

 

She changed into something suitable for dinner at Lena’s – dress pants and a dark shirt – and put her glasses on, putting her hair up into a neat chignon. She didn’t bother with makeup. She didn’t want to give Lena the idea that she was trying to make her regret her decision to marry Sam. It wasn’t her place.

 

She grabbed a bottle of wine on her way, knocking on Lena’s door about 10 minutes later.

 

“Hey,” Lena said, opening the door and staring at her for a beat.

 

“Hi,” Kara said. “I brought wine,” she said, holding the bottle out. Lena took it from her hand.

  
“Wow. You sprung for the expensive stuff, huh?” she teased.

 

“10 dollars is more than enough for a bottle of wine, Lena,” Kara huffed. This was an old argument, one which they’d gone over at least a hundred times since they met.

 

“Maybe five years ago? If you were very, very lucky with a sale. But now? $20 is low for a decent bottle, Kara. A lot of vineyards were damaged during the Dominator invasion,” Lena said. “I’m not sure $10 will buy you a bottle that has ever seen the presence of a real grape.”

 

Kara felt a clench of guilt in her stomach. If she had never gone to Earth 1, she wouldn’t have brought this invasion down on her Earth.

 

“Hey,” Lena said, gently. She touched Kara’s arm with her soft hands and Kara was suddenly taken back to the night she returned. She bit her lip, hard, and took a deep breath. “This wasn’t your fault, Kara,” Lena said. “You did an amazing thing, something no-one else could do. You saved billions of people on Barry’s Earth. Did you know that Central City on Earth 1 has a statue of you?”

 

“No,” Kara said, smiling faintly. “I didn’t know that.”

 

“Come inside,” Lena said, suddenly realising they were still at the door. Kara followed her.

 

Her son, Karl, was sitting on the huge couch. He was dwarfed by it. He looked tiny and Kara’s heart constricted at the sight of him.

 

“Hey, buddy,” she said. He jumped up, running to her and then pausing, as if he didn’t know if she wanted a hug. She made the decision for him, scooping him up into her arms and squeezing him as gently as she could.

 

“Hi, Mama,” Karl said. Kara began to cry silently, and popped the little guy back onto the floor.

 

“Hey, Karl,” she said, wiping her tears.

 

“Why are you crying?” he asked, and his eyes were so like Kara’s mother’s that it just made her heart want to burst.

 

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you that sometimes grown-ups cry when they’re happy?” she asked, smiling.

 

“Yeah, but I thought it was just her,” Karl said. Kara laughed.

 

“Well, apparently I’m just as crazy as your mom,” she said.

 

“Okay,” he said, nodding seriously. “Can we eat now, Mom?”

 

“Yes, we can, sweetie,” Lena said, beckoning for Kara to join her in the kitchen.

 

“He’s a smart kid,” Kara said. “Like he’d be anything else, with you as a mother.”

 

“He is. He beat me at chess once,” Lena said, over her shoulder. She was messing with something in the oven, and Kara took in a familiar scent.

 

“Did you make chicken parm and Italian potatoes?” she asked, trying not to gasp in delight.

 

“Well, it seems that it’s your son’s favourite food, too, so it seemed appropriate,” Lena said, turning to smile at Kara. She leaned back against the kitchen worktop, and Kara had to fight herself, because she wanted to move forward and sweep Lena up in her arms and kiss her senseless. Lena’s eyes widened a little, and Kara realised that Lena knew what she was thinking. She looked down, putting her hands in her pockets.

 

“So, did you need help with dinner?” Kara asked.

 

“Oh, no. I just… I wanted to let you know. He’s got powers. Just strength and invulnerability, so far. The rest will come in stages, or so your sister says. She said that the rest of Clark’s powers didn’t arrive until after puberty.”

 

“Okay. Well, that must have made it easier raising him this far,” Kara said. “I can imagine that a baby with heat vision could cause chaos.”

 

“Well, we do have the red sun lights throughout the apartment, just as a precaution. I haven’t… I hadn’t  used them at all, yet,” Lena said. She blushed, then, and Kara realised she was thinking about how they’d used the lights the night she arrived.

 

“That’s great,” Kara said. “You’ve done a great job.”

 

“He’s an easy child. Smart, obedient, caring. He makes it easy to love him.”

 

“I can see that,” Kara said, looking at her shoes. “Did you… did we need to talk about anything else?”

 

“Yes. He wants to know you. And I want you to know him. I was hoping we could work out a schedule between us. You’re named on his birth certificate as his other mother, so if you want joint custody, we can work that out.”

 

“That’s not… I’m happy for him to stay with you. He’s settled and he loves you. Maybe we could do one night a week? I could pick him up from school, maybe, and make him dinner?”

 

“Whatever you want, Kara. He’s your son too.”

 

“He’s _your_ son. I didn’t even know he existed until a few days ago. He deserves a better parent than me,” Kara said.

 

“Oh, come on, Kara. You’re his mother, and he’s your son. Maybe things didn’t start off in the most ideal way, but you’re here now. Just in time to help him to control himself and his powers before he starts interacting with other kids.”

 

Kara thought about that. It was a good point. She was the best person to help him with that, it was true. She would need to start teaching him Torquasm-Vo, and later Torquasm-Rao, so that he knew how to centre himself, how to meditate, and how to defend himself.

 

“Is it… are you okay if I teach him about Krypton?” Kara asked, nervously.

 

Lena stepped forward, putting a hand on Kara’s arm soothingly. Kara shivered, hoping Lena wouldn’t notice. She did, of course, and her expression grew sympathetic.  

 

“Kara, he’s your son. He’s half-Kryptonian. Of course I don’t mind if he finds out about his heritage.”

 

“Does he know?”

 

Lena shook her head.

 

“He knows he’s different. But I have let him believe he’s a metahuman. I wanted you to be here when I explained his origins.”

 

“Okay,” Kara said. No pressure there, then.

 

The oven dinged, and Lena turned her attention back to it, struggling a little to take out the heavy pan.

 

“Let me,” Kara said, gently moving Lena aside to pull out the chicken with her bare hands, followed by the potatoes.

 

“I never got used to that,” Lena murmured.

 

Kara shot her a grin.

 

Kara helped Lena to dish the food out onto plates, and she carried all three plates on her arms, waitress-style, leaving Lena to follow with drinks.

 

“Come on, little guy,” Lena said, startling Karl, who was mesmerised by some children’s television show. He jumped up, switching off the television, and he came to sit next to Kara, puffing his chest out proudly as she placed his food in front of him.

 

“He doesn’t usually eat at the grown up table,” Lena murmured, far too quietly for Karl to hear. “We usually eat with trays on our laps. He makes way less mess that way.”

 

Kara nodded slightly, smiling.

 

“Should I say grace?” Lena asked, out loud.

 

Karl looked at her quizzically.

 

“Sorry, son. I was just messing with your Mama. She knows I’m an atheist and I don’t pray,” Lena said, smiling at her son. “Let’s eat.”

 

“Do you pray, Mama?” Karl asked.

 

“I do,” Kara confirmed, after waiting for Lena’s nod. “My god is called Rao, and I carry him with me in my heart,” she said, touching her chest with a flat palm.

 

“Mom is a scientist, and she says that makes her not believe in a god,” Karl said sincerely.

 

“That’s not exactly right, sweetie. I don’t believe in religion, is what I said,” Lena said, but it was clear that the little guy didn’t see the difference.

 

“Are you a scientist too, Mama?” Karl asked.

 

“Not exactly,” Kara said. “I learned a lot about science when I was a child, but it’s been a long time since I have used any of that knowledge.”

 

“Why?” Karl asked, with the bluntness of the truly innocent.

 

“When I was little, my… my family… something bad happened,” Kara said. “I had to move away, really far away, to live with another family. Your Aunt Alex’s family.”

 

“Oh,” Karl said, his eyes wide. He stopped eating to pat Kara’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mama. Did they die?”

 

“Yes, they did,” Kara confirmed.

 

“That’s really sad,” Karl said, looking up at her with those eyes that were so similar to Alura’s.

 

“It was very sad. I was little – I was 13 years old, and I had to leave everything I knew behind. But I got a new family, and I don’t regret that,” Kara said. “I love your Aunt Alex and I love my foster mom, your grandmother, very much.”

 

“Did your god come with you from your home?” Karl asked.

 

Kara smiled.

 

“I like to think he came with me, to help me live in a strange new place. To give me strength. I think he must have, because I got to meet your Mom, and I got to have a beautiful son who I never expected,” Kara said, putting her hand gently on his shoulder and squeezing. “Even if he didn’t come with me, I feel like he did.”

 

Karl nodded gravely and then returned to his chicken parmigiana.

 

Kara got started on her food, belatedly, after sharing a fond look with Lena. Their son was something else.

 

After dinner, Lena produced a chocolate cake and some fruit. She insisted that Karl eat some apple and melon before allowing him to eat any of the cake. He took a modest slice, smiling as Kara slyly transferred another half-slice of cake to his plate afterwards. Lena mock-glared at her, but Kara just grinned.

 

They sat on the couch for a little while, then, with Karl in between them, and watched Doctor Who. It was Karl’s favourite, apparently, so Kara sat through the baffling show, watching in bemusement as Lena and Karl both watched avidly, eyes wide. It didn’t make any sense, and the sets were kind of amateurish, and… it didn’t make _any_ sense! What in Rao’s name was a police box, anyway?

 

When the show was over, much to Kara’s relief, Lena asked if she wanted to read Karl his bedtime story. Kara nodded eagerly, and Karl, it appeared, was just as happy as she was about this new development. Lena supervised the brushing of teeth and changing into pyjamas, and then left Kara to read from the first Harry Potter book. Kara was a little concerned that Karl was too young to read such a dark story, but since Lena had okayed it, she began to read, doing the voices.

 

“You’re really good at the voices, Mama,” Karl piped up, as Kara did a passable Hagrid. “Mom can’t do the accents.”

 

Kara giggled, hearing a snort of annoyance from the corridor outside the bedroom. She continued with the chapter, finishing it just as Karl’s eyelids were starting to close. She smiled down at him, brushing his dark curls back from his face. She leaned down to kiss him on the forehead, switching the larger lamp off and leaving a night light on for him in the shape of Yoda. She made a mental note to get one like it for her bedroom. She’d never liked sleeping in total darkness – it reminded her too much of the Phantom Zone.

 

She pulled the door halfway closed behind her and stepped out into the corridor, seeing Lena sitting in the hallway, arms wrapped around her knees. Kara held out a hand to her wordlessly, and Lena took it, gasping a little as Kara pulled her to her feet.

 

“I always forget how strong you are,” she said, face only inches from Kara’s. Kara released her arm, stepping back.

 

“Perks of being a Kryptonian,” she said. She tried to smile, but it didn’t feel right on her face.

 

She followed Lena to the couch, sitting down about a foot away. Lena looked at the space between them for a moment, letting out a short breath that might have been a sigh.

 

“I… thank you for reading to him. You did great.”

 

“Thank you for letting me see him,” Kara replied.

 

Lena sighed loudly.

 

“Kara, you don’t have to thank me. He’s your son. You can see him as often as you like.”

 

“That’s not really feasible, though, is it?” Kara asked mildly. “You’re getting married. Your… your new wife will want the family together, most of the time, I’m sure. I mean, I would. So I’ll see him as often as you have time, as often as Karl wants to see me. I don’t want to impose.”

 

“Jesus, Kara. You’re infuriating,” Lena said, shaking her head. “How many ways can I tell you that he’s your son, that I want you to see him as often as possible? And do you really think that I would be engaged to marry someone who would try to limit how often my son sees his other mother?”

 

Kara shrugged.

 

“You didn’t ask for me to come back into your life, Lena,” Kara said, shrugging. “I understand that my return has made things difficult, especially with you and… Sam.”

 

“You think I didn’t ask? You… I asked every day, Kara. Over and over. I prayed to your god, Kara. I begged him to bring you home. Even after I met Sam. I never gave up. I knew you would want to know your son, and I had always planned for us to share custody.” Lena was seething, now, and Kara shrank back a little in the face of her rage. She took a deep breath.

 

“I don’t WANT to share custody, Lena. Our son deserves a stable, happy home, not to get shunted from one home to another. So if it means his other mom is Sam and not me, then so be it,” Kara snapped.

 

“Kara, he’s not going to be shunted from one home to another. His home is here, but sometimes he can go stay with you at your place. Lots of people do it,” Lena said, gently.

 

Kara began to cry. She couldn’t help it. This was all just so wrong.

 

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” Lena said, pulling her close. Kara let her face rest against Lena’s shoulder, her own shoulders shaking with grief. She’d lost everything yet again, and now her only choices were to disrupt her son’s life and take him from his mother a few days each week, or to allow another woman to raise her son along with the woman she loved more than anyone. While Kara stood by, alone.

 

“I never meant to hurt you, Kara,” Lena whispered into her hair. “I never meant to find someone else. It just happened.”

 

Kara stayed where she was, letting her sobs out as Lena rubbed her back.

 

“For what it’s worth, Kara, I still love you more than anything,” Lena said.

 

Kara almost laughed. How was that supposed to help, exactly? Lena loved her, but she was still marrying someone else. But it wasn’t fair to think like that, because Kara herself had left Lena behind, and had no place to talk.

 

Kara pulled herself back together, sitting up and reluctantly pulling away from Lena.  She wiped away the rest of the tears on her cheek, glad that she hadn’t bothered with makeup. Her hair was coming down, too, and she pulled the hairpins out, letting it fall loose around her shoulders. Lena made a little noise in her throat, but Kara ignored it.

 

_She’s not yours anymore…_

“I should go,” Kara said abruptly.

 

“Kara, you don’t have to…” Lena began.

 

“I do,” Kara said. “Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.”

 

“Kara, please don’t… it was such a lovely night, please don’t let it end like this.”

 

Kara turned to look at her, heartbroken.

 

“I’m sorry, Lena. It’s not that… I don’t blame you. And I want Karl to be happy and to have family around him, always. But I just never saw myself raising a child where I was separated from my partner, from the person I… It’s going to take some getting used to.” Kara wiped her eyes again, pointlessly, because there were tears streaming down her face again.

 

“I’m sorry, Kara. It wasn’t my choice either. Don’t forget that I didn’t choose any of this,” Lena said, looking a little angry.

 

“I know,” Kara said shortly. She stood, looking around and finding her jacket. “Thank you again for dinner. It was lovely.”

 

Lena nodded, watching Kara carefully. She followed her to the door. Kara opened it and stepped through, pausing.

 

“We would have been the best team, the best parents,” Kara said, turning back to look at Lena gravely. “We would have been so happy, Lee.”

 

“Yes. We would have been. If you hadn’t left,” Lena said, crossing her arms.

 

Kara nodded and turned, walking away. She took the stairs, walking down each flight slowly, lost in her own mind. She could hear Lena crying in her bedroom, and she wanted to kick herself. There was no reason to make Lena feel bad. None of this had been her decision. The only reason Lena was getting married to someone else was because Kara left her alone for five years. No one was at fault but Kara herself.

 

She sent Lena a message soon after.

 

_None of this is your fault. I’m sorry if I made you feel like it was. You have done everything right by our son. Whatever you think best concerning custody is fine with me, as long as Karl is happy with it, too. I’m sorry I upset you._

She didn’t get a reply for a while. But then:

 

_This isn’t an easy situation for anyone concerned. I understand that you’re upset. This is not how I wanted things to go either. But now we need to work together for Karl’s sake. I’ll send you a schedule in a few days._

Kara sighed.

 

_Thank you. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you. I was an idiot to leave. You’re the one thing that kept me sane out there. I won’t say it again, but I wanted you to know._

Lena didn’t reply.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara decides what she wants to do with her life now that she's back on earth and everything is so different. She meets Sam and Ruby, and Karl meets Supergirl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-long chapter to make up for my absence.

The following morning, Kara flew to the Fortress and used Kelex’s superior knowledge of the Fortress system to make copies of the information crystals she’d stolen from the Kryptonians. She found that there was information and schematics on the crystals about several healing devices from her planet, and it got her to thinking. Her people had been advanced in the art of healing, and while she was never headed for the Healer’s Guild, she knew the basics of Kryptonian healing. It gave her the seed of an idea. She didn’t feel like reporting was for her, not anymore. Hope had always been her watchword as a reporter, and she’d looked for the good in every story, the heroics of ordinary people, the joy in the midst of pain. But her fellow Kryptonians had almost succeeded in beating hope out of her entirely, and her return to a broken planet and a relationship that was over before it had really began – well. That had taken care of the rest of it. She needed a break from the sadness and pain that humans lived through on a daily basis. Perhaps some time working on something else would be a balm to her shattered soul?

 

She dropped by the DEO and gave the schematics of the birthing chamber to Alex, who was ecstatic.

 

“I think this might work, Kar, and I think it’s possible that even if the virus is written into our DNA – we can write that out of the genetic code with a tool this powerful and sensitive,” she said, already writing down calculations.

 

“Okay,” Kara said. “Can you make sure the President gets a copy of this by the end of the day, too? I’ll take it myself if no-one’s going to DC.”

 

“No, it’s fine, Kar. Lucy has a meeting there later. I’ll send the info with her,” Alex said, distracted.

 

“Okay sis. See you later,” Kara said. She went home and took out the information she’d found about healing devices. She started writing down figures in _Kryptahniuo_ and translating them into their Earth counterparts. With a few hours of work, she had a much better idea of how the first device worked. It was for tissue regeneration, and it made wounds disappear as if they had never been there. Unfortunately there hadn’t been one on her grandfather’s crystal farm when she was a child. She had hit her head on a piece of farm equipment and it had bled furiously until her grandmother glued it shut. By the time she returned to Argo City, she was scarred, and that was that.

 

She started to note down the components she would need to build the regenerator, and was encouraged to find that most of them were available on Earth. There was one rare metal that she didn’t think existed in this solar system, but she was fairly sure that a small planet of peaceful insectoid aliens had deposits of the metal on their planet. It was just an FTL jump away. They liked shiny things so she could trade some of her remaining diamonds for the metal, she was sure.

 

By the time she was done with her planning, she was astonished to find that it was night. She never normally missed meals unless she was engrossed in following leads for a story or embroiled in a battle with some alien or another. She stood, cracking her back and neck, and made a call to her go-to Chinese place. They sounded relieved that she was back, and it made her laugh. She must have been keeping them in business through potsticker orders alone.

 

After she’d eaten she sent a text message to Cat Grant.

 

_Cat, I had an idea for something I might occupy my time with for now. It might be cheating, but I have schematics for some Kryptonian healing devices and I believe I can build them. I know it’s not really your thing, but would you be interested in investing? I don’t really need the money, to be honest – I could buy half of Earth with my collection of Saturnian diamonds – but I would really like a partner in this. Let me know what you think._

Cat replied an hour or so later, when Kara was deeply engrossed in a show called Stranger Things. It had apparently been the big event show a few years back, and Kara could see why. It scared the shit out of her, and when her phone rang, she jumped into the air, floating a few feet above the couch before she realised what she was doing.

 

“Kara. That sounds like a very sensible use of your time, if you haven’t got anything else that speaks to you just now. I would love to invest – as you know, I had to sell CatCo when I became Press Secretary, because it was a conflict of interest. I’ve checked with our attorneys and there is no reason why I can’t be part of your endeavour, as long as I don’t have any undue influence over health policy.”

 

“Wow, Miss Grant. I wasn’t expecting an answer so soon. Or one so positive,” Kara said, smiling.

 

“I like to support those I believe in, Kara, and you happen to be near the top of that list,” Cat said gently. Kara’s eyes filled with tears.

 

“Thank you, Miss Grant. Once I have a prototype, I’ll come see you. Or you can come here, if you have time.”

 

“I always have time for you, Supergirl.”

 

“Thank you,” Kara said.

 

“Good night, Kara,” Cat said, a smile in her voice.

 

“Good night, Madam Chief of Staff,” Kara said.

 

She went to bed shortly after, feeling as if she’d achieved something that day. There was a huge hollow in her chest, however, where her son and the love of her life should have been. She prayed that Rao would look after them, that even without her they would have a happy life, and she prayed that she might have enough strength to bear the pain of losing the one thing she’d been yearning for since she left Earth.

 

***

 

The following few days reminded Kara of just how rusty her scientific knowledge was. She ended up taking several trips to the Fortress to take instruction from Jor-El and her father’s AIs. It was stimulating and for the first time in a long while, Kara felt like her old self, the one from before she was sent to Earth.

 

She had just returned from the Fortress a few days after her initial visit when she decided to go to Noonan’s. She hadn’t had a pumpkin spice latte in too long, and she really wanted a sticky bun. Or eight.

 

She changed quickly in an alleyway behind the coffee shop and popped her head inside. There was a queue, but it wasn’t too long. Kara joined the queue and waited, letting her mind wander. That’s when she heard a familiar heartbeat approaching from behind her. She turned her head, seeing Lena walking to the door of Noonan’s, her hand linked with that of a beautiful, tall, brunette woman. Next to them was a girl – a teenager, Kara thought – and Kara’s own son, Karl. Kara looked around, wondering if there was any way she could leave without being seen, but it was too late. Karl had seen her, and was calling her.

 

“Mama! Mama!”

 

She took a deep breath, plastering a smile on her face, and she turned.

 

“Little man! Hey buddy! What are you doing here?” she asked, as he ran towards her. She scooped him up, squeezing him and then tickling him a little so he giggled.

 

She put him down reluctantly, noting that he had a death-grip on her hand, and she held out her other to Lena’s fiancée.

 

“Hi, I’m Kara Danvers. You must be Sam? It’s lovely to meet you,” Kara said, smiling.

 

Sam smiled back. She had a beautiful smile, Kara couldn’t help but notice.

 

“It’s lovely to meet you too, Kara. Lena has told me so much about you.”

 

“All good, I hope,” Kara said, smiling at Lena. “And who’s this? Your sister?” she asked, looking at Sam’s daughter.

 

The girl giggled, and Kara winked at her.

 

“I’m her daughter,” she said, holding out a hand. “I’m Ruby. You’re Karl’s other mother.”

 

“Yes, that would be me,” Kara said, looking down at her son lovingly. “It’s lovely to meet you, Ruby. Though I’m pretty sure you can’t be Sam’s daughter. You’re so grown up!”

 

The girl smiled shyly, blushing, and Lena rolled her eyes.

 

“Stop charming my girls, Danvers. You’re too good at it,” she said fondly.

 

Kara made sure her smile stayed in place.

 

“I can’t help it,” she sighed exaggeratedly. “It’s such a burden, being this charming.”

 

“I’m sure,” Lena said, one eyebrow up. “So what brings you to Noonan’s on this sunny afternoon?”

 

“Well, I’ve been busy for the last few days and I realised I was hungry, so I thought – why not go to Noonan’s for coffee and sticky buns?”

 

“What are sticky buns, Mama?” Karl asked gravely.

 

“Only the second-best dessert in the galaxy,” Kara replied.

 

“What’s the first?” he asked, quizzically.

 

“Chocolate pecan pie,” Kara said seriously. “My mom makes it, and it’s the best dessert. I’ll make sure you get to try it sometime.”

 

“Grandma Eliza told me about it. She said she wasn’t making it until you came home,” Karl said.

 

Kara’s stomach clenched. She hadn’t been to see Eliza yet. She really needed to do that. And she should check on Clark, too.

 

“Well, I’m gonna go see Grandma Eliza soon, so maybe I can get you some pie then?” Kara offered.

 

“Can I come with you, Mama?” he asked, smiling up at her so innocently that she melted.

 

Kara looked at Lena, shrugging.

 

“Of course you can, darling. Why doesn’t Mama come round tomorrow for dinner again and we’ll talk about it?” Lena said.

 

“If you’re sure,” Kara said.

 

“Of course I’m sure, Kara.”

 

“Yes, Kawa. Mom is sure,” Karl said solemnly.  

 

Kara laughed, squeezing Karl’s hand.

 

“Okay, kiddo. I’ll be there.”

 

His smile was wide and guileless, and she couldn’t help but smile back until her cheeks hurt. Lena cleared her throat, then.

 

“Are you staying here for lunch, Kara?” she asked politely.

 

“Oh, no. I should head home after I pick up some food,” Kara said, fiddling with her glasses with her free hand.

 

“Please, stay,” Sam said. “I’d love to get to know Karl’s other mother.”

 

Kara looked at her and found no trace of anything but sincerity. She looked at Lena, then, and Lena nodded.

 

“Okay, sure,” Kara said. “I’d love to.”

 

She ordered a sandwich and four sticky buns – three for the flight home – and sat at the small round table, Karl on one side and Lena on the other. Their knees were touching, and Kara was incredibly aware of it. She had to take a deep breath to focus.

 

She asked Sam about herself, and was surprised to find that Sam was more or less running LCorp, now, while Lena concentrated on CatCo.

 

“What made you decide to buy CatCo?” Kara asked, puzzled. Making LCorp into a force for good had been Lena’s main mission in life when she moved to National City. It must have taken something pretty big for her to have changed her focus so much.

 

“It’s kind of a long story,” Lena said, and she appeared to be blushing lightly. “But Cat Grant moved to the White House and she had to sell her shares in CatCo, and a man called Morgan Edge…”

 

“A gangster called Morgan Edge, you mean!” Sam interjected.

 

“Well, yes. He is known to be a criminal. He decided to buy CatCo so that he could control the media in the city to favour him and his projects. He almost destroyed the waterfront with nuclear weapons, if you can believe that, though his involvement was never proven. I’d just unveiled the statue to Supergirl after she defeated the Daxamites, and he decided to attack the ceremony.”

 

Kara heard Sam breathe ‘asshole’ under her breath, and she shared a smile with her. Try as she might, she couldn’t find it in her to dislike the woman.

 

“Anyway, partly to get back at him for the ceremony, and partly to… to protect the legacy of CatCo. I knew it was important to Supergirl, and I wanted to honour that, even in her absence,” Lena said.

 

The table was quiet for a moment as their food was delivered. Kara started eating her sandwich in huge bites, and blushed as soon as she realised that everyone was staring at her. She swallowed the huge lump of brisket and pickles and mustard.

 

“Sorry. Did you… want to say grace or something?” she asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin. Lena turned to her and wiped mustard from the tip of her nose, smiling fondly.

 

“No grace, darling. I think everyone’s just a little startled at the size of that bite,” Lena teased.

 

“Sorry,” Kara said. “I was really hungry.”

 

Lena sniggered and Kara glared at her.

 

“Enjoy your kale wrapped in lettuce,” Kara said, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

 

Sam and Ruby laughed, and Karl took the opportunity to steal a pickle from Kara’s plate.

 

“Hey, kid. I know I’m your Mama and all, but you don’t get between me and food,” she said, mock-ferociously. She tickled his sides until he was giggling helplessly. She let him go, squeezing him once for good measure, and when she turned back to her food, Lena was watching her, a strange expression on her face.

 

“Did you guys hear the reports that Supergirl is back in the city?” Sam asked, breaking into the silence.

 

“I did,” Lena said. “Something definitely fell to Earth about a week back. The government were tracking it. And there were a number of eyewitness accounts that said she’d been seen flying over the city.”

 

“I hope she’s back,” Sam said. Ruby loudly agreed. “She was always so good and caring. We need that, especially right now.”

 

“I’m sure she’ll be here if she’s needed,” Lena said quietly. Kara nodded, mouth filled with sandwich meats and pickles and all manner of delicious things.

 

They talked for a little longer about National City and how things had improved since the damage from the Dominator attacks had been repaired.

 

“For a while, there was no cell service at all. It sounds stupid, but especially when you have kids… it’s pretty scary not to be able to get a hold of them,” Sam said. Lena nodded, reaching over to touch Karl’s arm absently. “I was frightened all the time when Ruby was at school.”

 

“I can imagine,” Kara said. Belatedly, she realised that Sam was wearing a green bracelet. That meant that she could have children with Lena. The thought made Kara’s fists tighten, and she took a few deep breaths.

 

“You know, I should go. I have a ton of stuff to do, and I’ve interrupted your day enough,” Kara said, finishing her sticky bun in a huge mouthful.

 

Lena and Sam protested, but Kara was adamant.

 

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow evening,” she said, kissing Karl’s cheek and smiling at Lena. She slyly popped half of a sticky bun on Karl’s plate and half on Ruby’s. Both kids grinned at her, their mothers sighing heavily.

 

“You’re the worst influence, Kara Z… Danvers,” Lena said, uncharacteristically saying the wrong name.

 

“I do my best,” Kara said, bowing slightly from the waist. “It’s been great meeting you, Sam, and you, Ruby. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

 

She stepped back, holding the box containing her other two sticky buns to her chest, before turning and leaving as quickly as she could without super-speed. She finished both sticky buns before she got home, and when she was back in her own apartment, she changed and lay on the bed, crying helplessly before falling asleep, exhausted.

 

Alex and Maggie came by a little later with their little one, Laura, and they watched a kid’s movie about dragons while eating some amazing food that Maggie made. Alex was still useless in the kitchen, and Maggie had plenty of tales of Alex’s food disasters to entertain Kara with. All in all, it was a nice evening, cosy and comfortable, like family should be. Kara couldn’t help but miss the family she had left earlier that day, however.

 

“Are you okay, Kar?” Alex asked, after Laura had fallen asleep across her lap.

 

“I’m… yeah. I’m adjusting,” Kara said. Her expression gave her away, however, because Alex pulled her close and squeezed her as tightly as she could.

 

“I’m so sorry, Kara. I… I wanted to tell you, to warn you, but Lena insisted on doing things her way.”

 

“It’s not your fault, Alex. Nor hers. It’s mine. I left, and these are the consequences. I just never expected… I never expected a son. If Karl wasn’t in the picture, maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so much when I realised Lena moved on. But he is, and it does.”

 

“Do you really believe that, sweetie? Because it seems like you love Lena more than you’ve ever loved anyone, and I don’t really think that would have changed if Karl wasn’t here,” Alex said. She kissed Kara’s temple.

 

“I don’t know. I just… I love her. I met Sam today, and Ruby, and they are both so nice… I can’t even dislike them. Even though I really want to hate them for taking my family away. But they were here for Lena when I was galaxies away being tortured by the people I was trying to help. I can’t believe how stupid I was.”

 

“You’re not stupid,” Maggie interjected. “You did what you had to do. In your position a lot of people wouldn’t have tried to do what you did, Kara. But you’re not those people, Kara. You went there because you have a sense of duty and responsibility for your remaining people. Lena was heartbroken without you, you know that, but she decided to date Sam. She decided it was enough time to wait. You didn’t decide. She has some of the responsibility too, kid.”

 

“I guess,” Kara said. “I just don’t feel like I can lay any blame on her. She had my child, raised him even though I left her.”

 

“If you knew about Karl, would you have gone?” Maggie asked.

 

“No, of course not,” Kara replied.

 

“Then you don’t take any blame for that. Unless you have some future-seeing power that no-one told me about?” Maggie asked.

 

“No, I don’t. But I still left. The Earth was invaded because of actions I’d taken, and I wasn’t here to fix it, and Lena had to have my son and raise him without me. Those are direct consequences of my actions and I wasn’t here to fix them, and that just really sucks.”

 

“Yeah, it does,” Alex said, still holding Kara tightly. “It sucks, but it is what it is. You get to be sad, and you get to mourn for what you thought you’d have with Lena.”

 

Kara nodded, her head still on Alex’s shoulder.

 

“Thank you, guys,” she said.

 

They stayed there in companionable silence until Maggie yawned so loudly that she woke Laura. They laughed and decided to go, and Kara gave them extra-long hugs before they left.

 

The following morning she sent a message to Clark, asking if she could come visit. He replied quickly, saying they’d love to see her. She flew to the DEO, first.

 

“Hey,” she said, hugging Alex quickly. “Do you know where Winn is?”

 

“He’s in the nerd cave,” Alex said, rolling her eyes.

 

Kara smiled and whooshed off, finding Winn in the room where he’d showed her the new suit. She knocked on the open door and he looked up, smiling.

 

“Hey, Kar. I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back for this bad boy,” he said, indicating the suit hanging behind him. He appeared to be welding something, and she chose not to ask what.

 

“I’m taking a trip to Metropolis to see Clark and I thought I’d take it for a test drive. Fly. Whatever,” she said, leaning on the doorjamb.

 

“Cool. Can I keep the old one?” Winn asked. “I set up a display cabinet at my place for my suit designs. I already have James’ first suit there.”

 

“Of course,” Kara said. She took the new suit and took it to a nearby bathroom, changing quickly. She handed the old one back to Winn, and he whistled appreciatively at the new one.

 

“That looks even better than I thought,” he said, smiling. He adjusted her bracers and then her greaves fussily, checking out the suit from all angles. “That looks damn near perfect. Is it comfortable?”

 

“Yeah,” she said, flexing her arms and feeling the material give a little. The bracers and greaves made her feel more grounded, more powerful. And the hood would stop the wind from whistling too loudly in her earpiece when she was talking to the DEO. The psychic shielding was a real bonus, too.  

 

“Awesome,” Winn said, giving her a high five, and then wincing as she hit back with too much enthusiasm.

 

“Thank you, Winn. For still believing in me,” she said, sincerely.

 

“It wasn’t just me, Kara. It was Lena, too,” he said.

 

“I know. But I’m guessing that was a few years ago?”

 

He shook his head.

 

“We finished it about three months ago. I think the five-year anniversary coming up kind of freaked her out, and she had to do something to keep you safe, you know?”

 

Kara nodded. It didn’t make sense to her. Lena had already given up on her by then, finding her new family and moving on. Why had she made a new suit?

 

“Hey, Kar. Don’t cry. I’m sorry I brought it up,” Winn said, awkwardly. He gathered her into his arms and Kara let him hug her. She squeezed back.

 

“Sorry, Winn,” she said, wiping away tears absently. “It’s just been a little… different than I imagined.”

 

“I get that,” Winn said, wearily. “Things didn’t turn out how I’d planned either. If you ever need to go get drunk and cry about our lost loves, you give me a call, okay?”

 

“Of course,” Kara said, smiling. “Thank you, Winn.”

 

“Ooh! I almost forgot. You’re going to see Superman? Could you bring his new suit, too?” Winn asked. He disappeared behind some shelving, and a moment later he reappeared with another garment bag.

 

“Of course. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see it,” Kara said. “We owe you big time.”

 

“It was nothing,” Winn said, bashfully.

 

Kara smiled. “See you later, Winn.”

 

She shot into the Command centre, papers flying around her like a snowstorm. She stopped, apologising sheepishly to the agents in the area, and then she hugged Alex.

 

“I’m off to Metropolis. See you soon? Give my love to your girls,” Kara said.

 

“I will,” Alex said, smiling.

 

Kara flew to Metropolis quickly, breaking the sound barrier somewhere over Nevada. She found the window of Clark and Lois’s apartment, carefully staying as close to the walls as possible, and slipped inside.

 

“Hey, cuz,” Clark said, pulling her to him in a huge hug. It felt amazing. She heard his ribs creak and stifled a laugh.

 

“Sorry, I always forget you’re not as strong as I am,” Kara said.

 

He mock-glared at her.

 

“So, where did you get the new suit?” he asked, standing back. He looked impressed.

 

“A Mr Schott and a Miss Luthor have been working on it for the past year, or so I’m told,” Kara said. “It’s new and improved. It has Kryptonite shielding woven into it, and here is one of your very own!”

 

Clark took the garment back from her, raising an impressed eyebrow. He opened the bag and laid it out on the coffee table, pulling out the boots and weighing them with one hand. His boots had greaves, too, and there were bracers for his arms too, with the same words written on them as Kara’s.

 

“Wow, Kara. These are amazing,” Clark said. He lifted the suit, hanging it on the back of the door. “Have a seat.”

 

Kara sat, unclipping her cape  and smoothing it on the chair beside her.

 

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why did Lena Luthor get involved in making the suits? It’s not that I don’t trust her – if you trust her, I do too – but it just seems a little strange for a Luthor to want to do that,” he said.

 

“That’s a long story, cousin,” Kara said. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

 

“I am,” he said.

 

“Okay. Is Lois home?” she asked.

 

“She just went to get some food. I’ve been really hungry since I woke up,” he said, grinning.

 

“Okay. I’ll wait for her to get back, then, so I don’t have to repeat it?”

 

Clark nodded, and she settled back, crossing her legs. It was much more comfortable to sit in this suit, because she didn’t have to worry that someone could see up her skirt. The new suit’s pants were thick and were clearly woven through with some sort of metallic thread, and there was no seeing through them.

 

“So, how are you feeling now you’re home?” he asked.

 

“I’m feeling a lot of things,” she said, sighing. “I’m glad to be home. I’m glad I’m not on that planet with those monsters who called themselves Kryptonians. But I didn’t expect things to have changed so much.”

 

“I know what you mean,” Clark said. “I feel like… I don’t know, like I wasn’t needed when I was out of it, you know? So being Superman – I haven’t done any rescues yet. I feel… surplus to requirements. The same at the Planet – they partnered up someone new with Lois, and I feel like I’m not needed.”

 

Kara nodded.

 

“I know that feeling. I’m pretty sure I could go back to CatCo if I asked, but it doesn’t feel right for me anymore,” Kara said. “I found the schematics for several medical devices in the information I stole from the Kryptonians, so I’m going to build prototypes and see if I can bring those to completion. They could help a lot of people.”

 

“That’s great, Kara,” Clark said. He looked proud, and her breath caught in her throat for a moment. She’d wanted him to be proud of her for such a long time.

 

Just then, Lois bustled into the apartment. She dropped her bags on the floor as soon as she saw Kara, holding her arms out. Kara went to her, hugging her as tightly as she dared. Lois sighed.

 

“Kryptonian hugs are the best,” she said.

 

“We aim to please,” Kara said, stepping back. She took Lois in for a moment. She looked a little older, but still just as strong and determined. “You look great. I heard about how you coped with this one getting ill.”

 

“I had my moments, but eventually I realised I had to get back on the horse, you know? If I couldn’t heal him, then I had to wait. And waiting isn’t really in my nature, so…”

 

Kara noticed for the first time that Lois looked a little like Alura. The thought made her smile.

 

“So, to what do we owe the honour of your presence, Supergirl?” Lois asked.

 

“I came to see how Clark was healing,” Kara said. “And to sample your delicious cooking, of course.”

 

Lois rolled her eyes.

 

“Good job I planned for it, then,” she said. “Come sit in the kitchen and we’ll talk.”

 

Kara told them about her relationship with Lena, then, and her son. Her story was interspersed with instructions from Lois to chop things or to whip this or heat-vision that. She did as she was told, and a little while later they were settling down to a huge plate of pot roast and gravy and mashed potatoes and more vegetables than Kara could count. She also told them about the birthing pods, how the DEO were working on manufacturing them, and Lois’s eyes lit up.

 

“I’m still fertile, but Clark’s reproductive system took a hit from the virus. You guys really think you can fix that?”

 

“Well, we didn’t need reproductive cells specifically to make babies on Krypton. Just regular DNA. So if they can get one machine up and running, they should be able to reproduce it, and given enough time, it should work as a stopgap to keep the human race going until those with the infertility virus have died out,” Kara said. “I’ll ask J’onn to let you guys have first crack at it. He might not listen to me, but since I brought the technology here, I should have some sway.”

 

“That would be amazing,” Lois said, taking Clark’s hand and smiling at him.

 

“Anything for you guys,” Kara said, stuffing a huge forkful of mashed potatoes into her mouth.

 

“So you really love the Luthor girl, huh?” Lois asked, a little later.

 

“I really, really do.”

 

“And she had your son. Even though you weren’t even trying to get pregnant,” she continued, a little accusatory.

 

“If I’d known it was possible, I never would have… I would have been more cautious,” Kara said, blushing. Clark was blushing just a brightly.

 

“I know,” Lois said. “It’s just crazy that you didn’t even plan it, and now you have this five-year-old kid, you know?” She sounded angry, and Kara could understand it. Clark was infertile, and they both wanted kids, and there was Kara, getting Lena pregnant without even trying or wanting to.

 

“Tell me about it,” Kara said. “I love him. I love him so much already, and I only just met him. Lena wants me to have joint custody, but I feel like that’s not fair to her, or to him. He barely knows me and I would be disrupting his whole life, you know?”

 

“Kara, you have a son. That’s a blessing from Rao. I know that you think you’re doing the right thing, but a kid needs their parents. Even if they’re not together. If the little guy isn’t comfortable with it, I’m sure he’ll tell you. Kids aren’t known for having the best filter when it comes to things like that,” Lois said, grabbing Kara’s hand and squeezing. “You take that custody and you love that kid as hard as you can. That’s all you can do.”

 

“Thanks, Lois,” Kara said. “I… I don’t want to hurt anyone any more than I have already. He has a wonderful mother, and Lena’s fiancée – she’s amazing, too. And Ruby’s great, her daughter. I don’t have the right to step in, to disrupt that.”

 

“Kara, you didn’t plan on Lena getting pregnant,” Clark said, adjusting his glasses. “If you’d known, I know you wouldn’t have gone away at all. I’m sure that Lena has anticipated your return and decided what she wants for your son. You should be part of his life, whatever that entails. He needs to know where he comes from. If it’s at all possible, I’d like to meet him sometime soon, too.”

 

“Of course,” Kara said. “I’m sure he’ll be more than pleased to meet another family member.”

 

Clark smiled at her and Lois.

 

“I can’t wait.”

 

They talked into the late afternoon, catching up on the things Kara and Clark had both missed. Then Kara realised she had dinner with Lena and Karl later that evening, which meant she needed to get back to National City.

 

“Come see me soon,” she said, smiling at Clark and Lois. “And I’ll send you the information about your new suit, so you don’t blow up Metropolis by mistake.”

 

Clark chuckled.

 

“I look forward to it,” he said.

 

Kara flew back home even faster than she had on the way there. When she arrived in National City, she suddenly remembered the time difference. She still had 3 hours before she had to be ready for dinner. She had a long shower and pinned up her hair carefully, dressing in pants and shirt again. Lena was always dressed up and she didn’t want to appear like she wasn’t taking this seriously.

 

She flew to Lena’s just in time, knocking on the door at 8 on the dot. She was carrying her suit, hidden in its garment bag, because she needed to know what other features Lena had included.

 

Lena opened the door, surprisingly dressed down in yoga pants and a soft t-shirt. She smiled at Kara, taking in her clothes with an appreciative look. Kara’s stomach clenched.

 

“Is that your new suit?” she asked, quietly.

 

“Yes,” Kara said. “Winn said you had some upgrades to talk to me about.”

 

“I do,” Lena said. “Let me take it and we’ll talk about it once Karl’s in bed.”

 

Kara nodded, handing over the suit, which Lena quickly stowed in a closet. She stepped inside the now-familiar apartment, and Karl jumped up to run to her. She ducked down and gathered him up in a hug.

 

“Hey, Little One,” she said, almost gasping when she realised what she’d said. Rao, she missed her aunt.

 

“Hey, Mama,” he said. He smiled up at her, his eyes twinkling. He looked so much like Alura in that moment that Kara’s heart felt fuller than it had in a long time.

 

“What have you been doing today?” she asked, moving to the couch where Karl sat himself down next to her. He told her what he’d been doing all day, which apparently involved spending the day with Ruby and an older woman called Anna, presumably a nanny. They’d been to the park and played on the swings and Ruby helped him to build a sandcastle.

 

“Sounds like a busy day, champ,” she said, offering him a fist bump. He returned it, looking delighted. “Blow it up?!” she suggested. They did, and then giggled like idiots.

 

“Are you two ready for dinner?” Lena asked, from behind them. Kara turned her head to see Lena watching them both fondly.

 

“Yes!” they said, simultaneously, before giggling again. Lena rolled her eyes and went back into the kitchen.

 

A moment later there was the delicious scent of lasagne and garlic bread. Along with a salad, of course, because this was Lena. But both Kara and Karl dug in with gusto.

 

“This is amazing,” Kara said, groaning in delight. Lena blushed slightly, and Kara averted her eyes. She did not need to be thinking about Lena and noises and sex right then.

 

The food really was amazing, and there was some pumpkin pie and hot chocolate for after. Kara washed the dishes while Lena watched another Dr Who with Karl. She sat down about halfway through the baffling show, and had to endure the last twenty minutes or so.

 

“So, Kara,” Lena said, after Dr Who had flown off in his police box. “I believe you wanted to tell Karl something about his heritage, before you take him down to Midvale to see his Grandma.”

 

“You want… you want to do that now?” Kara asked.

 

“I’d really like to know why I’m so strong, Mama. None of the other kids in my class are strong. I thought I was a meka-human like Uncle Barry, but he didn’t think that’s what I was.”

  
“Oh, wow. You met your Uncle Barry, huh? When was that?” Kara asked.

 

“About six months ago,” Lena said. “He comes back to check on our Earth every now and then.”

 

“That’s really nice of him,” Kara said.

 

“He said he owed you,” Lena said, shrugging.

 

“Why?” Karl asked, looking up at them both curiously.

 

“Well, kiddo. Have you ever heard of Superman?”

 

“Is he like Guardian?” Karl asked.

 

Kara smiled. “Well, yes, but also no. He does good, too. He helps people. But he isn’t from this planet, sweetie. He’s from a planet that’s 27 light years away. Do you know what that means?”

 

“No,” Karl said, shaking his head solemnly. Kara couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

 

“Okay. Well, it means that it’s very, very far away. If you had a really, really big telescope, you could look through it and see where the planet Krypton used to be,” Kara explained.

 

He nodded, waiting for her to continue.

 

“So Superman is a hero. He can fly, and he can shoot fire from his eyes, and he’s super-strong and super-fast. Bullets just bounce off him.”

 

Karl’s eyes were as big as saucers.

 

“Is that really true, Mom?” he asked, looking at Lena for confirmation.

 

“It is, sweetheart,” Lena said.

 

“Superman is my cousin,” Kara said.

 

Karl tilted his head, thinking, and in that moment, he was a mini-Lena. Kara looked over at Lena, smiling fondly.

 

“So you’re from… Kipton?” he asked, with wide eyes.

 

“Krypton,” she corrected gently. “Yes. I’m not a human. I’m Kryptonian. And that means you’re half-Kryptonian, because your mother is human and I’m not.”

 

“Oh. Okay,” he said, shrugging. “So are you flying me to see Grandma?” he asked.

 

Kara nodded.

 

“Cool! I can’t wait. I get to fly and have the best dessert in the galaxy!” His smile was huge, and it made Kara grin widely.

 

“Yeah kid. We’re going to have to get you a tiny Superman suit,” she said, teasing.

 

“Mom? Can I have a Superman suit?” he asked.

 

Lena glared at Kara.

 

“I’m sure we can work that out, little guy,” Lena said.

 

Kara smiled.

 

“Now, you can’t tell anyone about this, squirt, okay? Because heroes have secret identities so that they can have a normal life, and your Mama is probably going to be Supergirl again soon,” Lena explained.

 

“Supergirl?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” Lena said.

 

“Do you have a suit too, Mama?” he asked.

 

“I do,” Kara said.

 

“Can I see it?”

 

Kara and Lena shared a look, before Kara got up and shot across the room faster than anyone could see. She changed into her new suit and stood in front of her son, hands on her hips.

 

“Hello, Kar-El, son of Kara Zor-El,” she said, smiling at him. “Your parents are very proud of you.”

 

His eyes were wide with awe.

 

“Wow, Mama! You look like a badass!”

 

Kara sniggered. Lena glared at her.

 

“Karl, baby? We don’t say ‘ass’ in this house, do we?” Lena chided gently.

 

“No, Mom,” he said, hanging his head exaggeratedly.

 

“It’s okay little guy. Just don’t say it again, okay?”

 

He nodded solemnly before standing, checking out Kara’s cape and boots with considerable awe. Kara couldn’t help but grin.

 

“Would you mind if I took him for a spin?” Kara whispered, as their son was distracted.

 

“No, not at all,” Lena said. “Just be careful.”

 

Kara nodded seriously. She would never risk her son’s life.

 

“Do you want to have a little flight with me, little guy?” Kara asked.

 

He jumped up and down and Kara took that as an answer.

 

“Now, you have to put your arms round my neck, nice and tight, okay?” she said.

 

He nodded seriously and Kara lifted him, feeling him wrap his tiny arms around her neck. She could actually feel his grip, and it was a beautiful thing. She wrapped her arms around his back and hovered off the ground for a moment to see how he would react.

 

“Wow! You really can fly!” he exclaimed.

 

“I can,” Kara said. “You ready to go outside and see the city from the air?”

 

He nodded eagerly.

 

“We’ll be right back, Mom,” Kara said, winking at Lena.

 

Lena swallowed, nodding, and it became clear that she was fighting back tears. Kara mouthed ‘are you okay?’ but Lena shook her head, dismissing Kara.

 

Kara went to the balcony door, opening it, and then stepped outside. She lifted off gently, letting Karl get used to the sensation. Then she started for CatCo, knowing that it had one of the best views in the city. She landed on the roof, chuckling to herself as she heard him shouting in excitement.

 

“What do you think of the view from up here, Little One?” she asked, hearing the echo of her Aunt Astra in her own voice.

 

“It’s sparkly,” Karl said.

 

“It is,” Kara agreed. “Do you want to go and look at the sea?”

 

“Yes!” he shouted.

 

Kara lifted him again and flew them to the waterfront, where she flew close to the water, allowing him to skim his fingers along the surface.

 

“That was amazing, Mama!” he shouted.

 

“Flying is the best,” Kara agreed. “We should go back now. Your Mom is waiting.”

 

“Okay,” he said, reluctantly. She pulled his tiny body a little closer, wrapping him in part of her cape. She flew back slowly, and by the time she reached Lena’s apartment, he was snoring into her shoulder.

 

She landed silently, hovering inside so as to not disturb her precious cargo. Lena looked up, her face lighting up with a smile.

 

Kara put her finger to her lips, and Lena nodded, standing. She indicated for Kara to follow her, and Kara floated down the corridor after her… after Lena. She put the little guy on top of his bed. Lena quickly changed his clothes so that he was wearing Spider-Man pyjamas. He looked so cute that Kara wanted to bite his feet. (She couldn’t entirely understand why.)

 

Once Karl was settled, Kara and Lena backed out of the room, leaving him to sleep.

 

They sat on the couch again, Kara leaving plenty of space between them.

 

“So, Winn tells me you made a lot of modifications to the suit. Including the Kryptonite shielding?”

 

“Yes,” Lena said.  “It’s actually pretty revolutionary. Sam’s about to announce the sale of new anti-radiation suits, slightly modified from this, of course, to protect humans from harmful radiation. It would take a person to be standing in the heart of a nuclear reactor that was in full meltdown for the radiation to harm them at all.”

 

“You continue to amaze me, Lee,” Kara said, admiringly. “Thank you for doing this.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

“Can I ask you something? It might seem like a strange question?” Kara said, brow furrowed.

 

“Of course, Kara. You can talk to me about anything,” Lena said.

 

“Why did you do it? Make the new suit, I mean? I could understand if you did it right after I left, or even before you met Sam, but why when you’d already given up on us?” Kara asked. Her voice was quiet, and she was careful to keep the pain out of it.

 

Lena recoiled as if Kara had slapped her, her eyes wide.

 

“I… I didn’t… I never gave up hope that you’d come back, Kara. Even when we hadn’t heard a thing from you in two years.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” Kara said, studying her fingernails carefully.

 

Lena took a deep breath.

 

“I… Sam came along when I really needed someone, Kara. She didn’t mind that I had a son. She didn’t mind that I was still in love with you. She was just there for me, and she held me up when I couldn’t hold myself up. Sure, I made you a new suit last year with Winn. I made it because my mother was still a threat, still making horrible, evil plans that killed aliens. I knew that if you ever did come back, you wouldn’t be safe because my mother and Lex and people like them are still out there. I never gave up on you, Kara. I guess I gave up on hope, the hope that we could ever be together again, that you would even come back at all.”

 

Kara stared at her.

 

“Why did you sleep with me when I got back, Lena? Why did you do that? Because for one night, one night and one beautiful morning, I was so, so happy. I had a family and a life and a purpose. And then… then I find out that the family that I thought was mine actually belonged to someone else. To Sam. You… you know I never would have slept with you if I knew you were in a relationship. Let alone getting married,” Kara said, her voice quiet and trembling.

 

Lena looked away. She was quiet, for a long, long time.

 

Kara sighed, eventually.

 

“Lena, I just… please. I deserve to know.”

 

Lena turned to her, eyes blazing.

 

“I was selfish, okay? I was selfish and I fucked up. I shouldn’t have done it, but god, Kara I wanted you. I wanted you and I was too weak, so I took you to bed. I know I shouldn’t have. I know I shouldn’t have let you kiss me, not even once. And I regret it, because I can’t…”

 

Lena moved faster than Kara would have expected, and suddenly she was kissing Kara fervently, furiously. Kara kissed her back, mind blank except for the sudden fiery roar of lust shooting through her. She kissed back, pulling Lena close to her, feeling Lena arch into her body, and Lena’s tongue touching hers made her mind even more blank. The sound of panting broke into her thoughts, and she suddenly remembered where they were. Who they were to each other, and who they weren’t. She stopped, pulling back.

 

Lena stared at her, her lips swollen from their frantic kisses, and tears streamed down her face.

 

“I should go,” Kara said, standing up and staggering backwards. “Send me the schematics of the suit, will you? I need to know what it does.”

 

She shot out of the apartment as if she was on fire, taking herself North to the Fortress where she spent the night praying, asking Rao for his forgiveness for betraying her principles, for betraying the Girod. She had stopped, of course. She had stopped before it got to sex, but Lena had wanted them to sleep together, and Rao, so had she. She didn’t know if she had the strength to stop if Lena kissed her again. She didn’t know if she would even want to, and that was not good. It wasn’t in line with her values, but Rao she wanted to touch Lena again. To kiss her, to hold her, to love her. It felt right in a way that no-one else’s touch ever had.

 

She flew back to National City the following morning, showering quickly and having breakfast before getting back to her invention. She almost finished it that afternoon, but she needed the other metal element she knew was on a planet in a nearby system. She was just getting ready to go and see J’onn, to speak to him about permission to leave Earth for a short trip, when her earpiece chirped at her.

 

“Supergirl? We’ve got a huge fire in the warehouse district. Are you free to assist?”

 

It was Vasquez. Kara replied right away.

 

“Of course, Susan. Send me the location.”

 

She spun into her new suit, shooting out of her apartment window as fast as she dared. Her phone buzzed and gave her the address, but she didn’t need it. She could smell the fire from where she was, and the flames were licking high into the air.

 

She arrived in seconds, landing beside the fire chief.

 

“What’s the situation, chief?” she asked, hands on hips.

 

“Supergirl. I heard you were back. Nice to see you. We have people trapped on the top floor, and two of my men are, too. You think you can get them out, then use that cold breath of yours?”

 

Kara nodded and swooped to the top of the building, using her x-ray vision to locate the trapped humans. She blew in and out of the building as fast as her passengers could tolerate, and within a few minutes, all fourteen of the humans inside the building were with the paramedics. She hovered in front of the building, waiting for the men outside of the building to move back, and then she extinguished the fire with one long exhalation of her freeze breath. She landed back next to the chief, then, shaking his hand and thanking the other firefighters for their service. She noticed a few camera flashes and video cameras running, and she nodded at those filming, smiling slightly before taking off.

 

When she arrived home, she was in a much better mood than she had been earlier that day. She needed to feel useful, and helping those that no-one else could help made her feel like herself, again.

 

She got a text a little later from Lena, congratulating her on her rescue, and an email with an attachment telling her how to use the extras she installed in the suit. There was a button to shoot a tracker at her opponent, a gas that would incapacitate most, a taser powerful enough to take out Kara herself, and an EMP based on Lena’s black body field generator to deal with alien weaponry. In short, the suit itself was a weapon, and Kara was more than impressed. She texted back quickly.

 

_This suit is amazing, Lena. I can’t thank you enough._

 

_I can’t have you dying on me now, not when your son needs you._

_I’m touched._

_And I’m sorry. For last night. I shouldn’t have… you know. I really am sorry._

_It’s okay. I understand. We just need to control things a little better. So it doesn’t happen again._

_Of course. Good night, Kara._

 

_Good night, Lena. I love you both so much._


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Karl take a trip to Midvale, Kara and Lena talk again, and Kara makes a decision about her future with Lena.

* * *

 

The next day was a weekend day, so Kara checked with Eliza again that she was okay to bring Karl down to visit. Her foster mother replied in the affirmative, so Kara made her way to Lena’s balcony in her suit.

 

Lena opened it before she could knock, and Kara’s mouth dropped open when she saw the tight jeans and burgundy shirt that Lena was wearing. It was an outfit perhaps more suited to Kara herself, but Rao it looked good on her.

 

“Hey, you,” Lena said, stepping back to let Kara in. “How was your morning?”

 

“Great, thanks,” Kara said. “You?”

 

“Fine. I’m just waiting for Sam to get out of bed. She’s lazy on weekends. Ruby’s already at her dance class.”

 

Kara smiled, swallowing.

 

“That’s great. I hope you guys have a nice day,” she said.

 

Just then, Karl ran into the room, throwing himself at Kara as soon as he saw her.

 

“Mama! I saw you on the news!” he said.

 

“I know, buddy,” she said, smiling as she ruffled his hair. “I had to put out a fire. No big deal.”

 

“You really did all that stuff? Flying and freezy breath?” he asked, eyes wide.

 

She blew her freeze breath at the glass door of the balcony, just a tiny amount, but enough to show ice forming on it.

 

“I did, kiddo,” she said.

 

“Will I be able to do that too, because I’m a Kiptonian?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know, baby,” she said. “Maybe. But you’re half human, too, so you might not be the same as your mama and her cousin.”

 

“Oh,” he said, face falling.

 

“But you’re still stronger than any humans and a lot of aliens, kiddo. So don’t feel too bad.”

 

He smiled then, and her heart melted a little. She ruffled his hair again, and he grabbed her around the waist, a little tighter.

 

Kara looked over at Lena.

 

“Are you still okay if we go to Midvale, Lee?” she asked.

 

“Of course, Kara,” Lena said, fondly. “I hope you have a great time, Little Man.”

 

She moved closer, and Karl turned to hug her. She let out a small huff as he headbutted her abdomen, and Kara grinned.

 

“You be good for your Mama and Grandma, okay, honey?” Lena said, smoothing back his hair.

 

“Okay, Mom,” he said.

 

“Good boy,” Lena said, and then she kissed his forehead and let him go. Kara grabbed a jacket of his that she could see hanging on the door, putting it on at super speed, and then she lifted him up, instructing him to hold on tight. She hovered, turning to check with Lena once more that this was okay.

 

“It’s fine, Kara. Send a text when you get there, and one when you’re ready to head back, just so I know when to expect you, will you? Safe flight.”

 

Kara smiled at her and then turned, flying out through the open balcony door and gaining height before picking up speed, turning South to Midvale. The sound of whooping in her ear made her laugh, and before long, both she and Karl were laughing loudly, tears of joy running down their face as they broke the sound barrier, flying much faster than any human could tolerate. It was going to be a good day, Kara told herself.

 

She sent a quick text to Lena as soon as they landed outside Eliza’s home, and Kara took a deep breath of the sea air and the distant smell of chocolate pecan pie.  

 

She knocked on the door and Eliza answered, pulling Kara to her in what, for anyone else, would have been a crushing hug. Kara hugged back carefully, one hand still in Karl’s, and she rubbed Eliza’s back gently when she realised that Eliza was crying.

 

Eliza pulled back after a few minutes, wiping her eyes, and then she kneeled down to gather Karl into her arms.

 

“I’m sorry, Little Man. I haven’t seen your Mama in a long time, and sometimes adults get a little emotional when they miss someone,” Eliza whispered.

 

Kara wiped tears from her own eyes.

  
They stepped inside, and Kara automatically changed into some clothes she had in her room upstairs before sitting down.

 

“New suit, darling?” Eliza asked, as she brought one of her pies to the table along with two glasses of chocolate milk.

 

“Yes,” Kara said, mouth already filled with pie. “Lena and Winn made it.”

 

“So I heard,” Eliza said. She served a piece of pie to Karl, who grinned at her before carefully lifting some on his fork. Once he had a mouthful, his eyes widened.

 

“So, buddy. Was I right, or was I right?” Kara asked, grinning.

 

“This _is_ the best pie in the galaxy, Mama!” he said.

 

“Told you,” Kara said, holding out her fist for a bump. He returned it and they blew it up, giggling like fools.

 

When Kara looked up again, Eliza’s eyes were filled with tears.

 

“Hey, Eliza. What’s wrong?” Kara asked, quietly.

 

“Nothing. It’s just so beautiful, seeing you with your son. I never expected it, and I had started worrying that you would never come back,” Eliza said. Kara wrapped her up in a huge hug.

 

“I’m so sorry, Eliza. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want to go. It was such a mess, and I should never have gone, I’m so sorry,” Kara murmured, tears in her own eyes.

 

“It’s fine,” Eliza said, after a few moments. “I know you did what you had to do, Kara. You were always like that, ready to defend anyone you thought needed your help. I would never have expected anything else from you.”

 

Kara drew back, sniffling, and Eliza produced a tissue from somewhere. Kara cleaned her face, and Eliza wiped hers, and they smiled at each other.

 

“I missed you, Eliza,” she said.

 

“I missed you too, sweetie,” Eliza said.

 

Karl piped up a second later.

 

“Why don’t you call Grandma Mom?” he asked.

 

“Eliza is my foster mom,” Kara explained. “My mom was called Alura, and she died a long time ago. It didn’t feel right to call someone else my mom. But Eliza is the best mother a girl could ever wish for,” she said, smiling as Eliza teared up again.

 

“And Kara is the best daughter. Apart from Alex, who would kill me if I didn’t say that they’re absolutely equal in all ways,” Eliza said, winking at Karl. He giggled.

 

The rest of the day was the kind of comforting, relaxing family fun that Kara never thought she’d experience again in her lifetime. They played on the swing set in the backyard, then they went to the beach and played in the freezing cold water, Kara teaching Karl the rudiments of surfing. Eliza fed them until they were stuffed, being well used to feeding a hungry Kryptonian under a yellow sun. By evening, Karl was fast asleep and Kara was exhausted. She took the opportunity to tell Eliza briefly what had happened when she was away, how the Kryptonians tortured her, and she held Eliza as she cried.

 

“I’m fine now, Eliza. I’m here and I’m safe.”

 

Eliza asked her what was happening with Lena, and it was Kara’s turn to cry, then. They comforted each other for a little while, and then it was time to go back.

 

“Thanks for today,” Kara said, scooping up her sleeping son and putting his coat back on without waking him. “He had a great time. And I missed you.”

 

“I missed you too, sweetie. Don’t be a stranger, now, will you?”

 

Kara nodded. “He’s going to want to come here a lot, I think. He kept saying he wants Alex to teach him how to surf. Apparently my lessons were boring, and she’s way more of a badbutt.”

 

“A badbutt?” Eliza queried, eyebrows rising in amusement.

 

“Lena told him he’s not allowed to say ass. So badbutt it is.”

 

It was time to go, so after a quick text to Lena, Kara gathered Karl close to her body, smiling fondly at his snoring, and she took off, waving at Eliza as she gained altitude. When she was high enough, she made for National City at high speed.

 

She landed on Lena’s balcony less than 40 minutes later, tapping gently on the glass. To her surprise, Lena opened the door only a tiny amount, enough to slip her body through only. The curtains were closed.

 

“Lena, what…”

 

“Kara, you need to come in the front door,” Lena whispered. “Sam and Ruby are here. They have no idea you’re not human.”

 

“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Kara said, sighing. “I can’t believe I didn’t realise. What are you going to tell them?”

 

“I’ll think of something,” Lena said. “Just go change and come up the human way, would you?”

 

Kara nodded, stepping off the balcony and flying into a dark alley. She wrapped Karl in her cape, sitting him on a mostly clean patch of concrete, and spun into her Kara Danvers clothes. She picked him up, tucking her cape away with the rest of her suit, and she made her way to the front of Lena’s building. It was tedious, waiting for authorisation from the doorman, and then waiting for the elevator to take them to the penthouse. She was running out of patience by the time she reached the top, but she knew at least some of that was to do with the fact that Sam and Ruby were at Lena’s. Staying at Lena’s, like they belonged there. Because they did, and she didn’t.

 

She knocked on the door, her lack of patience evident as she splintered the wood a little with her knuckles. Lena opened the door a minute later, looking harried.

 

“Hey, Kara. You’re home. You’ll never guess who just stopped by!”

 

“Who?” Kara asked, playing along. She stepped inside the apartment and managed a half-wave at Sam and Ruby, made awkward because of her son in her arms.

 

“Supergirl! She stopped by to say hi and to thank me for the help with the Daxamites and helping to get rid of the Dominators. Isn’t that nice of her?”

 

“It really is,” Kara said. “It’s a shame I’m not still at CatCo; maybe I could have persuaded her to do an interview.”

 

She moved inside of the apartment, helping Lena to take off Karl’s shoes and coat without waking him.

 

“You know, you always have a job at CatCo if you want it,” Lena said. “You were one of their most promising reporters before you left.”

 

“I have something else occupying me at the moment,” Kara said, with a tight smile. “Maybe once I’m done with that.”

 

Lena looked at her curiously.

 

“Well, the offer’s there,” she said.

 

“Thank you,” Kara murmured. “Should I put this little guy straight to bed?”

 

“Actually, would you mind if I did it?” Sam asked from the couch. “We have kind of a tradition, when Ruby and I are staying.”

 

“Of course,” Kara said, pasting a smile on her face. Sam stood and took Karl from her arms, and it was all that Kara could do not to headbutt the woman into next week for daring to touch her son. Lena touched her arm gently, murmuring under her breath for Kara to calm down.

 

“I should go,” Kara said, with a smile that she feared looked more like a grimace.

 

“Stay for a while, Kara. You hardly know Sam and Ruby,” Lena asked.

 

“Maybe next time,” Kara said, nodding at Ruby, who was watching them with interest. “Goodnight, you guys.”

 

She marched her way out of the apartment, and was pulling the door closed behind her when she felt resistance. Lena was following her.

 

“Please, Lena. Just… leave it alone, please. I can’t…”

 

Kara turned her face to the wall, trying to regain her control.

 

“Kara, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Lena said, imploring.

 

“It doesn’t have to be what way, Lena? Me on the outside, with another woman putting my son to bed? A woman who has a _tradition_ of putting him to bed, all because I was stupid enough to think I had a duty to people who tortured me to the point of death over and over again for three years? How am I supposed to handle that, Lena? Can you honestly say you’d be doing any better?” Kara demanded, her voice as quiet as she could manage.

 

Lena blanched.

 

“They tortured you?”

 

“Apparently they held me accountable for my family’s actions. I can’t say I blame them. They were complicit in the death of all of our people. I misjudged how pissed off those people would be,” Kara said.

 

“So that’s where you got all the scars from,” Lena breathed. She moved towards Kara, seemingly automatically, and Kara stepped backwards.

 

“Yes, that’s where I got the scars from. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really should be going,” Kara said. She turned, and Lena grabbed her shoulder.

 

“Please don’t go like this, Kara.”

 

“You keep saying things like that, Lena, but what do you want from me? How am I supposed to react to this? I know I don’t have a right to be angry, so I try to leave, and you tell me not to leave things like this. What do you want?”

 

Lena turned Kara to face her, lifting her chin.

 

“I hurt you. I hurt you badly, and I know that. I understand it. I just… I want you to be in my life, Kara. I want you to be in Karl’s life as much as possible. He doesn’t want to lose you, and neither do I.”

 

“Lena, you have a fiancée. That’s who you should be worried about losing, not me. Not your mistake of an ex.”

 

“You were never a mistake, Kara,” Lena said.

 

“Then why did you give up on us?” Kara asked.

 

“I… I was lonely, Kara! I deserve to be happy!”

 

“You do. And that’s why I’m going,” Kara said, dully. “Goodnight.”

 

Lena kissed her, and Kara didn’t pull away. She felt tears on her lips and she didn’t know who they belonged to. She melted into Lena, and Lena into her. It was transcendent, and she never wanted to stop, but she heard a noise from inside the apartment, and she pulled away.

 

“We can’t do that again,” she said, licking her lips and backing away. “I won’t screw this up for you.”

 

She turned, flying into the stairwell at super-speed, ignoring Lena calling after her. This had to stop. They couldn’t be around each other like this. She decided there and then that she would see her son, but only if Lena dropped him at Alex’s. She couldn’t see Lena anymore.

 

She got a message as soon as she arrived home.

 

_I’m so sorry, Kara. I never meant for any of this to happen._

Kara thought for a long time before replying.

 

_Neither did I, Lee. I still love you and I can’t control that. I can control this, though. I can’t see you any more. When I see Karl, I want you to drop him at Alex’s and I’ll take him from there, and drop him back at Alex’s for you to pick up. That way no-one gets hurt any worse. You chose Sam and I respect that. I’m sorry for my part in all of this. You deserved better from me._

Lena didn’t reply, but when Kara tuned into her heartbeat, she heard it stuttering as Lena cried. It sounded like she was in the bathroom – there was water running nearby. She thought about going to her, holding her, making it better, but then she remembered that Sam was there. Comforting Lena was her job, not Kara’s.

 

Kara had no more tears left, so she watched another new show on Netflix, this one about a bunch of FBI agents in Earth’s past who worked out how serial killers’ mind’s worked. It was on the list that Alex had made for her of things she had to catch up on. She got engrossed, despite her pain, and fell asleep somewhere after the fourth episode, waking in the morning with a crick in her neck that faded as soon as she moved into the sunlight. The television was blinking at her, asking if she was still watching. She switched it off and made some coffee.

 

It was a little later when she felt ready to face the world. She changed into her suit and flew to the DEO to get permission to fly out to the Vega system to buy supplies of the rare metal she needed to make her tissue regeneration device. She had decided that she would buy much more of the metal than she actually needed, just in case it should prove useful for other devices, or in case, as she suspected, her tissue regenerator went to market. She landed in the DEO and suddenly remembered that she hadn’t had a chance to really talk to Agent Vasquez. She found her in her usual spot, listening to her comms with a frown on her face.

 

“Susan?” she asked, when the woman was free.

 

“Yes, Supergirl?”

 

“Are you free for lunch?  We never got a chance to catch up.”

 

“Of course, Ma’am. In about an hour?”

 

Kara nodded, squeezing her arm, and then she went in search of J’onn.

 

He frowned as she described her plans for the regeneration device.

 

“Did you run this by the President?” he asked.

 

“Well, I spoke to Cat about it, and I’ve sent the plans to the patent office already. Cat is investing, if it goes to market,” Kara said, shrugging.

 

“But you definitely need to go to Resa 4 to see the Resurians?”

 

“And I need to gather some more diamonds from Saturn to pay for the metal.”

 

He nodded.

 

“Let me speak to President Marsdin. I’ll have an answer in a few hours. But you need to talk to your sister, too, because if you leave Earth without telling her again I will not be responsible for the fallout.”

 

“Okay,” Kara said. She whooshed off, finding Alex hard at work in her office. She was building the bio-processor for a birthing pod. Kara coughed quietly to alert her sister to her presence. Alex turned around, her expression annoyed, but it morphed into a smile when she saw Kara.

 

“Sorry. I thought you were Winn,” Alex said. “He’s been getting on my nerves all morning. He’s building the pod itself, and he’s been checking in with me every few minutes to see if the bio-processor’s ready. How many times do I have to tell him that he’ll be the first to know?”

 

Kara chuckled.

 

“You’re not far from finishing it, are you?” she asked, looking at the chip on the desk.

 

“No, just a few more adjustments,” Alex said, peering at it through a magnifying glass.

 

“J’onn told me to come see you,” Kara said. “You know I’m building a healing device?”

 

“Yeah,” Alex said, still peering at the chip. Kara stifled a laugh. She looked like she had one giant eye.

 

“I need some materials from off-world. Specifically, from Vega, and J’onn said that if I did that without telling you, you might actually murder me. So, here I am, telling you.”

 

Alex stood, turning to look at Kara.

 

“I’m coming with you this time. No arguments.”

 

Kara held a hand up.

 

“No arguments here. As long as you clear it with Maggie first,” Kara said.

 

“Fine,” Alex said, huffing slightly.

 

“You have a daughter to think about, Alex. So get your wife’s permission before you go traversing the universe, okay?”

 

Alex narrowed her eyes and grabbed her phone.

 

“And what about _your_ wife?” Alex asked, before dialling.

 

Kara’s throat closed up, and she couldn’t say a word. Alex looked at her, waiting for an answer, and her eyes widened in concern.

 

“Shit, Kara. I was just… I feel like you guys are going to be together, no matter what. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

Kara waved a hand, backing out of the office. It was almost time for lunch with Vasquez, so she went back to the command centre, sitting down on a free chair and doing some Torquasm-Vo to calm herself. When Vasquez was ready, they walked in companionable silence to the commissary.

 

Kara piled her plate high with meats and pasta and something that resembled a dish from Krypton, something with piles of garlic and lamb and rice. It was Egyptian, she thought, and she wondered idly if the Kryptonians had given them the recipe. The flavours of the lamb and the garlic weren’t an exact match, but they were close to their Kryptonian counterparts. Susan watched her in amusement as she grabbed five pudding cups, nodding at the bemused cashier, who was clearly not used to being told to let Kara pass no matter how much food she had.

 

“So, Supergirl. I read the report of your visit to your people. That’s some heavy shit,” Vasquez said, shovelling mashed potatoes into her mouth. Vasquez was the typical soldier – she ate when she had to, and she ate as if she was fuelling up. And when there was time for sleep, she slept, no matter if she was standing or lying down or anywhere in between.

 

“It was pretty horrible,” Kara agreed.

 

Susan looked at her, clearly realising that Kara didn’t want to talk about it, and she nodded curtly.

 

“So, I guess you want to know what happened with me when the Dominators came?” she asked.

 

“I don’t need to know a thing, Susan. I could just see that something monumental happened to you, and I wanted you to know that I’ll always be here to listen.”

 

Susan nodded.

 

“I’m married. I don’t think you’ve met my wife. She’s a medic, works at National City General. She was 5 months pregnant when the Dominators attacked. There was no keeping her home, because there was so much destruction and so many deaths. And then there was the virus. After Superman managed to defeat the Dominators with the Flash and his buddies, he suddenly got sick, and then people around here did, too. And they all died. It was pretty crazy for a while. I was quarantined with a lot of others, including Agent Schott. He was frantic because Lyra was sick, and then she died, but J’onn still couldn’t let us out. Poor girl ended up in an unmarked mass grave, her and her brother,” Susan said. She took a moment to chew on a thick piece of steak, dipping it in a spicy sauce. “Meg – my wife – she didn’t catch the first virus. She should have, by all rights, because she was exposed over and over at the hospital, but she didn’t. The second wave, though – that got her. She didn’t die, but she wished she had for a really long time. The baby died inside her, and she was just… she was a wreck. She had to give birth to the baby, even though I begged them to do a C-section. It was safer for her health if she delivered it naturally.”

 

“I’m so, so sorry, Susan,” Kara said, taking the other woman’s hand and squeezing it. “That must have been so awful.”

 

“It was… it changed me, Kara,” Susan said. Her eyes were far away. “I know that you know loss better than anyone. I thought I did, too. But losing a kid? Even an unborn one? It was like nothing I’ve ever felt, and I was stabbed by a Diurnian with one of those hook knives, once. Pulled half of my intestines out, and it still didn’t hurt nearly as much as losing our girl.”

 

“Rao,” Kara breathed. “I wish I hadn’t gone to Earth 1. I should never have interfered.”

 

Susan turned to look at her.

 

“You think I’d be sitting here having lunch with you, Kara Zor-El, if I blamed you for any of this? You saved Earth 1 from a genocide. If I’d known back then, when you went to Earth 1, that it would result in the death of my kid? I’d have told you to go anyway. This is what we do, Supergirl. We do the right thing, even when it hurts. Like you did, going to find those fools from your planet. No matter what they did, you did right, ma’am. You went to help, with open arms, and they were responsible for hurting you, not the other way around. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

 

Susan was clasping her arm, eyes steady on hers, and Kara swallowed.

 

“Thank you, Suze. I needed to hear that. I lost a lot because I left, and I felt like an idiot when I realised it was for nothing.”

 

“Doing the right thing is never for nothing, Kara. Like I said. It’s who we are. Those morons don’t deserve you, and I hope they enjoy being stranded on that planet for the next hundred years or more.”

 

“I hope no-one goes to investigate the planet. They’re going to get a nasty surprise, with those people there. They have left any sense of decency far behind them,” Kara said, darkly.

 

Susan nodded, her mouth full of food. Kara always felt comfortable with Susan. She had a lot of the same priorities Kara did, if in a less showy way.

 

“So how is Meg now?” Kara asked.

 

“She’s… recovering,” Susan said, carefully. “She had a little bit of a nervous breakdown, I guess you’d call it. I honestly thought she’d leave me, because statistics say that most couples who lose a child split up. It helped when we found some alien refugees a few years back. We have two kids now, both Infernian. Dar and Jad. They’re brothers, and they pass for human, and we love them so much. I can’t imagine my life without them, now.”

 

“I know what you mean,” Kara said, thinking of her son. She headed that thought off, because it inevitably led her to thinking of Lena, which led to nothing good, not now that Lena had moved on.

 

“Your girl found someone else, I heard,” Susan said. “I’m sorry about that. You can understand it, I guess – it had to have been lonely – but it seems crazy when you think she only met her a year ago. Just one year, and you could have been together.”

 

“Yeah,” Kara said. “I am trying not to think about it too much. Sam – the fiancée – she’s a really sweet person, and her kid seems great too. Lena told me they’re a family, and I’m not doing a damn thing to mess that up. She deserves it. Karl does, too.”

 

“You’re a good person, Kara. It’s a sucky situation. You can’t blame her, and she shouldn’t blame you, either – not if she really knows who you are, deep down. It still sucks, though. Anyone who’s ever seen you two together could see you were meant to be.”

 

“I always thought so, too,” Kara said, sadly. “But I have a son, and that’s a lot more than I ever expected from life. I thought I’d be alone forever, after Mon-El left – and don’t get me started on my bad judgement there – but I get to have a son, and he’ll live a lot longer than a human, so maybe it won’t have to just be me and Kal for an eternity. I mean, Kal doesn’t even watch television. What is that?”

 

Susan laughed, flashing her teeth.

 

“He’s a special case, that guy,” she said. “I’ve never met anyone who says ‘jiffy’ or ‘swell’ unironically. Apart from you, of course.”

 

“I picked it up from him. For some reason, he has the vocabulary of a fifties newspaperman.” Kara smiled.

 

The rest of their lunch was less serious – they talked about sports, Kara pretending that she knew the difference between baseball and basketball, and she promised to ask Lena for some good tickets to the next game, since she owned the team. Again, which team that was, Kara wasn’t sure, but Lena would probably know, right?

 

After lunch she made her way to the de-power room, turning the Kryptonite up to 30%, well past her normal, and she beat the living shit out of a couple of practice dummies. About an hour later J’onn entered the room, turning the lights down.

 

“I’m still working out,” Kara grumbled.

 

“You’re done for the day, Supergirl,” he said.

 

She turned, glaring, and he looked back at her, impassive, his arms crossed. Kara sighed, unwrapping her hands slowly.

 

“I have permission from the President for you to leave tomorrow. We’ll expect you back in a week or thereabouts,” he said.

 

“Thanks, J’onn,” Kara said.

 

“You’re welcome. Don’t get into any trouble, Supergirl, and bring Alex back safe.”

 

“I don’t know if she can come. It’s up to Maggie,” Kara said, shrugging. J’onn winced.

 

“I’m glad I don’t have to argue with her. She’s a force of nature,” J’onn said.

 

“You and me both,” Kara said, smiling. She went to use the DEO shower, to get rid of the Kryptonite sweat, cleaning her suit along with her body, and then spinning both until they were dry. She dressed quickly and went to check in with Alex before leaving.

 

“Hey,” she said, leaning on the door jamb. “Did you speak to Maggie?”

 

Alex turned, blinking. She must have been hard at work on the processing chip for hours.

 

“Yeah, she says it’s fine. But if you don’t bring me back in one piece, she used some very graphic threats about places where Kryptonite should not be shoved, Kar. So you’ve been warned.”

 

Kara nodded, eyes wide. Maggie was terrifying for such a tiny woman.

 

She ate takeout in her empty apartment, wishing things were different. She sent a quick message to Lena after she’d eaten, just confirming that she was going off-world for a week or so, and that she’d get in touch when she came back to arrange when she’d see Karl. Lena replied quickly.

 

_Be careful, Kara. I can’t stand the idea of losing you again._

_Not gonna happen, Lee. Just a shopping trip. If there are any rare elements you might need, now’s the time to tell me. My cargo hold isn’t huge but I can manage a ton or so._

_Could you get me the element we used in Rhea’s transmat portals? It’s useful for those and for some of the new devices I’m working on. LCorp will pay for your time, of course._

_Not necessary. I’m a bajillionaire in diamonds, not to mention the rare metals I’m about to be purchasing. If I see anything else of interest, I’ll grab it for you._

_Thank you. Karl says he wants to come next time._

_When he’s 200 years old, maybe I’ll consider it._

_Lol. Seriously, though. Be careful, Kara. Please._

_I’ll be back safe and sound, I promise._

_I’ll hold you to that._

Even in their messages, they were stepping over the line a little, past the point of exes and into people who were still attracted to one another. No-one else might see it, but Kara could feel it. It made her want to smile and cry simultaneously. Lena still wanted her, still loved her. Even if she didn’t love Kara enough to break off her engagement, it was something.


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Alex take a trip to Lyra to get some supplies for Kara's invention, and Kara learns a surprising fact about Sam.

* * *

The following morning Alex turned up earlier than expected, Maggie by her side.

 

“I left Laura with Karl and his nanny for a while, just because I wanted to look you in the eye and say this,” Maggie said, eyes hard.

 

Kara swallowed.

 

“If Alex comes back home with a hair on her head missing, a single scrape, a bruise? I will shove Kryptonite so far up your ass you’ll be tasting it for a month. Do you understand me?”

 

Kara nodded.

 

“You know, she doesn’t have to come. I told her that,” Kara said, weakly.

 

“Yeah, she said that. But you know, especially after last time, that’s not gonna happen.”

 

Kara nodded.

 

“I’ll keep her safe or I’ll die in the attempt,” she said, gravely. She meant it, and Maggie nodded after a moment.

 

Maggie kissed Alex goodbye and swept out, fixing Kara with another warning glance before leaving. Kara let out a relieved breath when she was gone.

 

Alex laughed.

 

“She’s fucking scary when she’s like that, isn’t she?”

 

“Um… yeah!” Kara said, shaking her head. “She’s so tiny! I could throw her into space, and my suit has Kryptonite shields, and I still want to run away.”

 

“Yeah, keep that in mind if something does happen. Because she’s not joking.”

 

Kara stared at Alex, eyes wide. Alex stayed straight-faced for a moment, then cracked up laughing.

 

“You should see your face, sis!”

 

“You’re such a jerk,” Kara muttered darkly.

 

“Yeah, yeah. You love me. Come on. Let’s go get our intergalactic adventure on.”

 

Kara nodded. She had laundered several of her flight suits from her previous travels, as well as her supersuit, so she grabbed the bag containing extra clothes and toiletries and lifted Alex with her other arm. Alex stood on her feet, arms around her neck, in a practised manoeuvre. They were at the DEO a few minutes later, and Kara found that there was a hive of activity in the hangar containing her ship.

 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

 

“I got them to add a few things to the ship,” Alex said, shrugging.

 

“A few things” turned out to be an extra bunk (which made sense, because they might both need to sleep at once) and weapons, some Kryptonite jewellery, which Alex said she’d explain later, and more weapons. The ship had a positron cannon mounted on the top, smaller, laser-like weapons on the side, and inside there were all manner of hand-held weapons.

 

“You expecting them to try to kill us?” Kara asked, bemused.

 

“No, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear about our defensive capabilities,” Alex said.

 

Kara shrugged. She didn’t trust her own decisions anymore, not after the Kryptonians. Her scars were slowly fading, but she’d never forget the feeling of being burned right down to the bone.

 

The DEO agents waved them off, and Kara piloted them out of the atmosphere deftly, ignoring the fire licking up the windows of the craft. She set a course for Saturn so that she could collect more of the diamond rain for the aliens she was hoping to trade with. Then it was on to the Vega system, specifically the solar system of Gamma Lyrae (Lyra, to use its local name). It made her think of Winn’s dead lover, and she sent a prayer to Rao for the woman’s soul. She set the autopilot, and the automatic warnings came on, advising her to strap in. She ensured that Alex was tightly strapped in, too, before she hit the button sending the ship into FTL travel. Once the initial shock was over, she sighed, removing the straps around her middle. Alex did the same. Kara went to the little food dispenser, ordering some rehydrated breakfast-ish food and a coffee, and passed it to her sister before getting the same for herself.

 

“Did you eat this stuff the whole time you were out here?” Alex asked, looking disgusted.

 

“It tastes kind of awful, but it’s good for you. Protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fats. All balanced with vitamins and minerals. It was better than what the Kryptonians gave me. I’m pretty sure it was leftovers from their livestock’s food. It was disgusting, and a lot of the time I couldn’t stomach it even when I was starving.”

 

“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Kar,” Alex said.

 

“It’s over,” Kara said, shrugging. “I can’t fix it, now. They’re out there and they’ll live, barring catastrophe or invasion. I guess I did what I went there to do.”

 

“You know, I’m usually the last person to say this stuff, but pushing stuff down doesn’t help. Suppressing pain and trauma just makes it come back at difficult times. Just… keep it in mind, okay?” Alex said, looking at Kara in concern.

 

“I will,” Kara said, looking out of the viewscreen distantly. The stars were almost lines when the ship jumped, and space lost a lot of its beauty. She’d always be a fan of travelling through space the old-fashioned way, but it wasn’t fast enough to get anyone anywhere, given the mind-boggling distances between each planet, never mind each sun.

 

“So, do you wanna tell me what’s going on with you and Lena? She said you took Karl to Midvale, but she had this weird look on her face when she was talking about you,” Alex said, finishing her breakfast mush and following it up with half of her coffee.

 

“That depends. How hard are you going to judge me?” Kara asked, looking at her seriously.

 

“No judgement,” Alex said, holding her hands up.

 

“She… I went to have dinner with her and Karl a few nights back, so I could tell Karl about where he comes from, and set up things for going to Eliza’s. We talked a little after Karl was in bed, about the suit she made, and I asked her why she’d made it after she’d given up on me.”

 

“Ouch,” Alex said, wincing.

 

“I didn’t say it to hurt her, Alex. It just… it didn’t make sense, you know? She was with someone else, so why start a project to ensure my safety then?”

 

Alex nodded sympathetically.

 

“She told me she hadn’t given up on me, and she wanted me to be safe from Cadmus and Lex and anyone else who might hurt me. I accepted that, because what else could I say? Then I asked her why she slept with me when I got back, because… because it wrecked me, Alex, that she didn’t tell me that she was engaged, she let me think we were together, that I had a family, and when I realised… I’ve never felt pain like that before,” Kara said, swallowing heavily. She kept her tears back with an effort.

 

“What did she say to that?” Alex asked quietly.

 

“She said that she was selfish and weak, and she was sorry, and then she… she kissed me. And I let her,” Kara said, staring at her feet. “I let her. I kissed her back, and I screwed up.”

 

“Oh,” Alex said, face screwed up in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Kar. That must have been…”

 

“Torture. It was torture, Alex. So I pulled away and I left. And then when I got back from Midvale with Karl, I was going to put him to bed – he was asleep – but Sam asked if she could do it, because she always did when she stayed over. I said yes, because of course I had to, and then I left, but Lena followed me, trying to make sure I was okay, and I just… I told her it was hard for me to be okay, and we argued a little, and she kissed me again. When I got back home, I sent her a message saying that I couldn’t see her anymore, because it hurt too much, and then I heard her crying in the shower, alone, and I… I couldn’t go to her, because it’s not my place. It’s Sam’s place, not mine, and Rao knows I deserved to lose her after leaving her, but it hurts so bad, Alex. I love her so much and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.”

 

Alex stood, moving to her side, and pulled Kara up and into her arms.

 

“She’s just as conflicted as you are, Kara,” she murmured, squeezing Kara as tightly as she could.

 

“I don’t think she is,” Kara said. “It seems like she’s just been using me. She slept with me without telling me about her fiancée, and she’s kissed me twice, when _she_ wanted to. It’s not fair. How can she not see how much it’s hurting me?”

 

“I don’t think she’s using you, Kara. I think she can’t help it. I think she loves you and she wants you more than she knows how to express, and she’s caught between you and Sam. Like you said, Sam’s a great person, and she doesn’t deserve being second best. I think it’s inevitable that you two will work it out. There’s too much love there for it not to be.”

 

“I hope you’re right,” Kara said, pulling back and wiping her eyes. It turned out that she did have some tears left, after all.

 

They stopped near Saturn a few hours later, and Kara grabbed the space suit Alex had designed for her, making sure the oxygen was topped up and the small fuel tanks were full. She could probably make it back to the ship on her own – probably – but it wasn’t worth risking it.

 

She grabbed a heavy, thickly-woven bag and stepped into the airlock, saluting Alex as the door closed. The outer door opened and she launched herself out towards Saturn, the sun’s rays shining on her directly, without having to go through the Earth’s atmosphere, and powering her exponentially more than it did on Earth. She switched on the suit’s thrusters, shooting down into the planet’s atmosphere, where she simply sought out a storm and collected diamonds until the bag was four times as heavy as she was. When she was ready she turned on the suit’s thrusters, making it back to the ship in ten or fifteen minutes. She basked in the sun the whole way. She entered the airlock, waiting patiently for the decontamination process to finish, and then she stepped inside. The bag was suddenly much heavier, and she had to put a little effort into lifting the precious stones. She pulled a few from the top of the bag – they looked unremarkable, given that they were uncut – and handed them to Alex.

 

“Just in case you ever want to have new wedding rings made. Genuine Saturnian diamonds,” Kara said, smiling. She pulled the bag to the back of the ship, opening the small cargo hold, and stowed it neatly with the others she’d collected from her previous visit.

 

“Jesus, Kara. How many diamonds have you got in there?” Alex asked, peering over her shoulder.

 

“I have no idea,” Kara said, shrugging. “Enough to buy half of the wealth on earth, I would think. Especially given the size and clarity.”

 

She closed the cargo hold and took one of the diamonds from Alex’s hand. She shot a low-level beam of heat vision at it, polishing it to a fierce shine.

 

“How many carats is this?” Alex asked, staring at the priceless jewel that was the size of her palm.

 

“I have no idea. I think Cat could probably tell you,” Kara said, with another shrug.

 

“You have no interest in money at all, do you?” Alex asked, curiously.

 

“Nope,” Kara said. “I value love and friends and family. And food. Money can buy things but I can already fly and do other amazing things. I don’t need a fast car or a jet or an island. There’s plenty of unclaimed, undiscovered land on Earth I can use if I want to get away, and there’s nowhere on the planet I can’t reach. I don’t need money for those things.”

 

“But you do need it to get the tissue regenerator to market,” Alex said.

 

“Yes. I mean, Cat said she would invest, but I’ll need some capital of my own. Maybe we should stop on the way back and check out the asteroid belt for precious metals, too. It couldn’t hurt.”

 

“Sure, why not,” Alex said, nodding. “You never know.”

 

Kara set their course to Vega, warning Alex to strap in, again, and they jumped again, the stars turning into lines, and nebulae becoming streaks of colour against endless black. She would never stop being fascinated by space, no matter how long she lived, because it was a marvel. The distances involved in crossing just one solar system where still far beyond human ingenuity, and to travel a galaxy was unthinkable. She wondered how the President would feel about her making a few more ships like this one, in case the Dominators or anyone else tried to invade. A few more positron cannons might dissuade them.

 

They talked for a little longer and Kara started to get sleepy, despite the sun’s boost from earlier. She took the top bunk, floating up there and sleeping almost immediately.

 

When she woke, it was almost a day later, and she felt strange, like she was thrumming inside. She jumped down from the bunk, finding herself suspended in the air when she’d decided to drop to the ground. She looked down at her feet sleepily, and then looked up at Alex.

 

“Shit, Kara. I meant to tell you to put on those Kryptonite bracelets before we…”

 

Kara’s heat vision kicked in without her permission. It didn’t feel like normal, and she squeezed her eyes shut immediately, but not quickly enough.

 

“Shit, Kara. What the fuck was that?!”

 

Kara felt around for the storage area where the kryptonite bracelets were. She found it, fumbling, and after a minute or so she managed to clip on the bracelets, feeling a little strange but not weak like she normally was around Kryptonite.

 

She opened her eyes carefully, making sure she was looking at the reinforced bulkheads, and was relieved when her heat vision didn’t kick in. She turned to look at Alex, to see how much damage she’d done to her sister.

 

Alex was uninjured. In fact, Alex was floating, staring down at her feet with an expression of pure astonishment.

 

“Kara, what the hell is happening?” she asked, incredulous.

 

“I have no idea,” Kara breathed. “I think we should have done some research on this system and its stars.”

 

“I _did_ some research, Kara. I worked out that a blue sun would make you much stronger, perhaps make your powers uncontrollable, hence the Kryptonite. But you blasted me with something and now I have your powers, too. What is that?” Alex looked stunned.

 

“I have no idea,” Kara said. Just then, the ship dropped out of FTL, and a huge, blue-white star filled the viewscreen.

 

“There’s the culprit,” Alex said, turning in mid-air to look. “My guess is that it’s amplifying your powers to the point where they’re transmittable. How crazy is that?”

 

“Very,” Kara said. “Very, very crazy.”

 

About an hour later, they arrived in orbit of the planet they were looking for. Resa 4. Kara immediately sent a transmission to the surface. She had already sent several messages warning of her arrival and confirming it was for trade reasons, but she hadn’t received a response. This time, she received a short response asking her to activate her viewscreen. She did so, and the face of one of the Resurians – tiny yellow insectoids similar to the praying mantis – appeared on screen.

 

It clicked a few times at her, and Kara smiled.

 

“I’m most sorry, honourable sir, but I do not speak your language,” she said, in _Kryptahniuo_. He bowed a little, forelegs rubbing against each other.

 

“We have not spoken your tongue for many decades, young Kryptonian,” he said, his accent perfect.

 

“Most of my people died when the planet exploded,” Kara confirmed sadly. “There are two of us remaining on Earth, and a number of others stranded on a planet in a distant red sun system.”

 

“And they have hurt many,” he said.

 

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I am the last daughter of the House of El, and I went to their aid when I heard of their existence. They held me for almost three years, torturing me for the sins of my family.”

 

“I am sorry to hear this, young daughter of El. I met Alura Zor-El many years ago, when I was a small Resu, and she was most kind.”

 

Kara inclined her head politely.

 

“My mother was a wonderful woman, and I loved her very much.”

 

“You are young Kara, then?” he asked, head tilting.

 

“I am,” she confirmed.

 

“You are welcome to trade with us, then, young Kara of El. You may land your ship at these co-ordinates. Be well.”

 

The picture on the screen disappeared.

 

“Was that a good conversation or a bad one?” Alex asked, now sitting on the top bunk.

 

“It was a good one. He knew my mother and is willing to trade with me,” Kara confirmed. She checked her display and saw the co-ordinates the Resurian had sent.

 

They landed where indicated, a plain near a large building, and were greeted by a number of the Resurians who offered them food – strange vegetables and fruits – and Kara instructed Alex on how to behave and what to eat safely. The gentleman they’d spoken to from orbit appeared shortly afterwards. His thorax was brightly patterned, contrasting with the plain yellow of his abdomen.

 

Kara bowed deeply, lifting a diamond from the huge bag she was carrying. She shot a burst of heat vision at it, carefully holding it back so it wasn’t too strong, and showed them the perfectly polished diamond that resulted.

 

“I bring diamonds of many sizes. I hope they are still as prized here as they once were.”

 

He nodded, smiling as much as he was able with his wide mouth.

 

“This is more than acceptable,” he confirmed. Kara smiled.

 

“I seek this metal,” she said, showing him a small sample that she had procured at the alien bar. “And any other rare elements or metals you might have for sale.”

 

“We have rich deposits of this and of the element used in the transmat portals your people used, daughter of Alura. If you are reproducing Kryptonian technology, we can help,” he said, ushering them to a building nearby. It was made from mud, it appeared, but it was polished and precise and beautiful. They followed their host to a large room at the back of the building where there were small supplies of several rare elements and metals. Kara chose those she thought would be most helpful, settling down to barter with the Resurian with a smile on her face. Alex sat next to her, stoic and quiet, and the Resurian watched her with interest just as she watched him.

 

“She is your pet?” he asked, eventually. Kara sniggered.

 

“No, she’s human. From Earth,” Kara explained. “They do not possess powers of the sort Kryptonians gain under a yellow sun. But something curious happened when we arrived here. I appear to have transferred my abilities to her.”

 

“Ah. Our sun is most unusual,” he said, smiling. “Our own abilities are strange and far-reaching – we are not native to this sector, as you know.”

 

“I remember,” Kara said. The Resurians had moved from a system with a dying star centuries ago, and had evolved quickly under Lyra’s strange light.

 

They settled on a price, eventually, which amounted to about half of the diamonds Kara was carrying with her. Enough to buy most of Texas, she thought. It was a small price to pay for the materials they would be bringing back. To sweeten the deal, their host offered them a day’s rest in his holiday cabin on a lake. Kara agreed, mostly out of politeness, because she knew that the Resurians would need time to gather the amount of materials she was buying, and the offer of the cabin was to save face. Kara didn’t mind, however, and they were soon on their way. The cabin was built from the same polished mud as the building, and was bright and beautiful, almost modern minimalist, by Earth’s standards. The lake was an eye-watering green and they were careful not to drink the liquid, but they could swim in it and it took away any aches and pains they had gathered on the way. Alex, naturally, took a sample of it to bring back to Earth.

 

Alex’s abilities persisted, and she trained herself quickly to use heat vision, freeze breath and flight. She was just as bulletproof as Kara – something which Kara tested using some of the weaponry Alex had brought along – and almost as strong. She used the abilities almost non-stop, taking notes on a pocket Dictaphone about how the abilities felt and how strong they were. Her sister was ever the scientist, Kara observed, as she flew around the planet with Alex later that afternoon, returning even stronger than she was before she left.

 

They slept comfortably in the building, the Resurians having provided them with soft bedding. The insectoids didn’t sleep on beds – they hung from the ceiling from their back legs, which didn’t seem like it could be comfortable, in Kara’s opinion, but clearly they knew what was best for them.

 

They arrived to find the Resurians bustling around carrying huge boulder-like quantities of metal on their shoulders like ants. Kara turned the ship around, pointing the cargo bay to where the supplies were stashed. The insectoids, without any direction, began stacking the metals, first, and then the more fragile elements for the transmat portals in reinforced boxes on top. When they were done, the cargo hold was completely full, and Kara handed each worker a small diamond as thanks.

 

“You are most generous, daughter of Alura,” their host said, landing next to them in a flurry of wings. Kara jumped a little – she wasn’t aware that their species could fly.

 

“You are most welcome, honoured sir,” Kara said, bowing slightly. “I wish to establish a relationship with you and your people, for mutually beneficial trade in future.”

 

“I would be delighted to establish such a relationship with you, daughter of Alura. You are strong and gentle and honest. Your loyalty would be greatly prized.”

 

Kara nodded.

 

“You have it, honoured sir,” she said.

 

“Call me Hassseiiith,” he said.

 

Kara’s eyes widened. It was almost unheard of for Resurians to trust outsiders with their real names.

 

“If I may, honoured sir, I will call you Hass,” Kara suggested. “I fear my tongue would mangle your great name otherwise.”

 

He bowed, his mouth opening in his version of a smile, and he held one forearm out to the side. A smaller insectoid approached holding a blue jewel the size of Kara’s hand.

 

“Please, Kara Zor-El, accept this token as a sign of our loyalty. Hold it in your hand and think of me, and we will be able to speak telepathically. Your people have no telepathy, I know, but this device is designed to bypass your shields and allow you to communicate with us.”

 

“I am honoured, Hass,” Kara said sincerely.

 

“You are our honoured ally,” he replied, bowing. Kara bowed back, and then it was time for them to go. They exchanged thanks a few more times and then she and Alex got into the ship. Kara made sure the take-off was slow and steady, so as not to damage Hass’s delicate, beautiful wings, and the ship made calculations for them to leave the atmosphere quickly. They were outside of it and in the emptiness of space in moments.

 

“You ready to go back?” Alex asked, as Kara urged her to strap in to her chair for their FTL jump.

 

“As much as I’m going to be, I guess,” Kara said, sighing.

 

“She does love you, you know.”

 

“I kind of wish she didn’t,” Kara said, the force of the jump pushing her back into the malleable material of her chair momentarily. “It would make things easier. Unrequited love would be a lot easier than this.”

 

“I know,” Alex said. She unbuckled her straps and let herself float into the air.

 

“I wonder how long that’ll last?” Kara mused.

 

“Who knows. Do you think your buddy Hass might have some idea about it?” Alex asked.

 

“Maybe. He told me a little about his species’ development. They weren’t anywhere near as sophisticated a species when they left their last home. Their sun was dying, so what was left of their race moved to the nearest system with a star that had a long life. They didn’t want to have to resettle their people again in another million or so years.”

 

“Hmm,” Alex said. “I might have to do some calculations when we get back.”

 

They were back in Sol’s system a day later, and to Alex’s eternal disappointment, her powers started to wane shortly after. They made for the asteroid belt before returning to Earth, where Kara was able to find more of a rare mineral used in the making of communications equipment – something she knew Lena could make use of – along with platinum, iridium and palladium. Kara flew from asteroid to asteroid, cutting out as much of the rare metals as she could with her heat vision. Once she had returned to the ship and she and the metals were decontaminated, she piled her booty up against one wall of the ship since her cargo hold was already full.

 

“You sure you got enough there, Kar?” Alex asked, grinning.

 

“You think I should come back for more?” Kara asked, straight-faced.

 

“You’re shitting me,” Alex said, disbelieving.

 

“Indeed I am,” Kara said, with a sly smile.

 

Alex mock-glared at her and she giggled.

 

“Come on, nerd. I want to get home and see my wife and daughter,” Alex said.

 

“Let’s do it,” Kara said. She set a course and the ship started the short jump that would take them close to Earth. A few hours later they were looking at a familiar blue jewel hanging in space.

 

“Home, sweet home,” Alex breathed.

 

They called for clearance from the DEO, and were informed that they had to dock with the space station first for inspection and decontamination of ship, crew and cargo. Kara sighed, but complied. Three hours after that, they were allowed to head to the DEO.

 

Kara had invested in a storage and office space of her own before leaving for this trip, so she left Alex at the DEO and piloted the ship to the roof of her new building. She quickly unloaded the metals and elements she needed for her own work, taking them inside using the freight elevator, and then she called Lena.

 

“Kara,” Lena breathed. “Please tell me you’re back on Earth.”

 

“Well, I haven’t managed to establish a Verizon connection to Mars, yet,” Kara said dryly. “I have some materials for you. The stuff you wanted for the transmat portals? And I got some other rare-earth minerals. Do you want me to unload them here at my building or bring them to a warehouse?”

 

“Could you bring them to the LCorp building?” Lena asked, after a pause.

 

“Can I use the helipad?” Kara asked.

 

“Um, sure?” Lena replied, confused. “Aren’t you flying?”

 

“I am, but with my ship,” Kara said.

 

“Oh,” Lena said. “Oh. Could I… could I have a look?”

 

“Of course,” Kara said. She remembered her decision from the last time she’d seen Lena, but it was too late, now. She shouldn’t see her again, she knew, but… she wanted to.

 

_Rao, I’m weak._

“I’ll be there shortly, then,” Kara said, over the clamour of thoughts in her head. She hung up and lifted the last boxes from the elevator, and then headed back to the roof.

 

The flight took a few minutes. She landed the small ship on the roof. It was at least twice the size of Lena’s usual helicopter, but she managed to set it down without damaging anything.

 

Lena was waiting for her along with Sam. Kara had forgotten that Sam worked at LCorp. In fact, she was actually running LCorp. How did Lena go from wanting to turn LCorp into a force for good to handing it over to someone else so she could take on CatCo? It was just another question that Kara didn’t get to ask, because she didn’t have the right to an answer, not anymore. She pasted on a smile, opening the cargo hold of her ship.

 

She pulled out a huge stack of rocks, figuring that Sam already knew she had a spaceship. What difference did it make if she knew that Kara was an alien? She would have to have a word with Lena about telling people about her identity.

 

“Kara. Or should I say, Supergirl,” Sam said, smiling. Absurdly, she took the stack of metal from Kara and put it on a nearby flatbed handtruck, using just her two hands.

 

“Well. Someone has been holding out on me,” Kara said, holding a hand out to Sam, who shook her hand. She could actually feel the handshake. She hadn’t noticed, before.

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Kara, but I figured I had to tell Sam about you, first. Then she confronted me about it, because apparently your glasses and ponytail aren’t the genius disguise you think they are. That, and the fact that both you and Supergirl just returned after a five-year absence,” Lena said.

 

Kara rolled her eyes.

 

“The disguise works just fine, Lena. We’ve been through this. So what’s your deal, Samantha?” Kara asked, pulling a box from the hold that probably weighed several tonnes. And was worth LCorp’s full market value, probably.

 

“Samantha? So I get my Sunday name now that I’m an alien?” she joked.

 

“I work for the DEO,” Kara said. “They hunt down rogue aliens.” She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing.

 

Sam blanched, stepping back.

 

“Is she serious?” she asked, sotto voce. Lena shook her head.

 

“She’s just fucking with you,” she said. “I mean, it’s true that she works with the DEO. But she would never turn someone in to them just for being an alien. They only hunt down aliens who are hurting people.”

 

Kara grinned, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“I take it back, Kara. Your disguise is your acting, and that’s pretty damn effective.”

 

“Do you know where you’re from?” Kara asked, as she unpacked the last few boxes.

 

“I don’t,” Sam said. “I have weird dreams sometimes, about this woman in a blue dress. She’s kind of terrifying, actually.”

 

“I dream of a woman in a blue dress,” Kara mused, “but she’s not scary. She’s my mother, in point of fact.”

 

“Oh. Wow. So you do know about where you came from, then?” Sam asked, pushing the truck that probably weighed somewhere around 20 tonnes with ease towards the freight elevator.

 

“I do. I was on Krypton until I was 13 years old,” Kara said.

 

“Oh. But… your cousin – he came here as a child, right? And he’s older than you?” Sam asked, confused.

  
“That is a long story. But suffice it to say I was held in stasis for 24 years. I actually changed my cousin’s diapers on Krypton. But when I got here he was a grown man, and a superhero.”

 

“Wow. Your life is like a science fiction novel,” Sam marvelled.

 

When she pushed the truck into the elevator, the wheels collapsed, and the elevator began to chime the alarm that it was overweight. Kara sighed.

 

“Why don’t we just hold it,” Sam suggested. “You can float, right?”

 

“Uh huh,” Kara said. “You too?”

 

Sam shrugged. They lifted the truck between them while Lena pressed the button on the lift for the correct floor. Kara and Sam both levitated about a foot off the floor, the truck held between them. Kara found that she had to concentrate hard to stay in the middle of the elevator, descending smoothly. Sam seemed to be having similar difficulties, her eyes narrowed. It took an eternity for them to reach the required floor. They carried the priceless materials between them, the metal of the flatbed truck groaning alarmingly, and they placed it all in a huge safe with massively thick walls and lead lining.

 

“One of Lex’s safes, for his Kryptonite projects,” Lena said, sighing. “It seemed a shame to waste a safe that secure, though.”

 

“I understand, Lee,” Kara said. “I know you would never do anything like the stuff he did.”

 

“Thank you, Kara. I should have remembered that you’d never think that of me,” Lena said, hand on Kara’s arm. Kara looked at her for a little too long before remembering herself and moving back.

 

“So, Kara. How much money do we owe for this haul?” Sam asked.

 

“Nothing,” Kara said, shrugging. “I was going anyway, and I had plenty of capital to pay for it. Consider it a present from Supergirl for the purposes of advancing humanity.”

 

“We’ll make sure to mention your name when we bring the transmat portals to market,” Lena said, smiling. “You’re crazy, though. You could make billions of dollars selling this to our competitors.”

 

“Let me show you what else I have in my ship,” Kara said, smiling wryly. They went back to the elevator, this time returning to the roof without needing to float. She opened the cargo hold again, showing Lena the bag, taller than Kara. “Do you know what I have in these bags?”

 

“No idea,” Lena said. Sam, however, squinted in a familiar way.

 

“Oh my god, are those diamonds?” Sam squealed.

 

“They are,” Kara said. “Saturnian rain, in fact.”

 

She pulled one from the bag and zapped it with her heat vision until it was a clear, gorgeous diamond. It was the size of a fist, and she handed it to Lena.

 

“M’lady. A precious jewel for the mother of my son,” Kara said, smiling. She did the same again and passed a second diamond to Sam. “And to the young woman who has cared for Lena so wonderfully in the last year. This diamond isn’t enough.”

 

Sam smiled, taking the stone and examining it carefully.

 

“Sam, I think there’s a chance you might be from my planet,” Kara said, watching as Sam looked at the jewel in a familiar way. She was using what Kal called micro-vision – essentially, using her Kryptonian eyes as a microscope.

 

“Really?” Sam asked, looking up, her pupils contracting and then expanding quickly. “Why?”

 

“You can fly, or at least float, you have super-strength, x-ray vision and micro-vision.”

 

“Micro-vision?” Sam asked.

 

“You just looked at that diamond on a molecular level, didn’t you?”

 

“Yes,” Sam said. “But I’ve never used heat vision or that cold breath thing you can do, and I can’t run faster than a human,” she explained.

 

“Well, I have an inkling you might be from Krypton, or perhaps another planet under a similar red sun. If you’re interested, we can go into the DEO and do some tests. I promise you, on my honour as a Kryptonian, that they would never hurt you unless you were hurting others.”

 

“Can I think about it?” Sam asked, frowning. “I’ve grown so used to hiding. I’m not really ready to show these abilities to anyone else right away.”

 

“Sure,” Kara said. “Now, I believe you wanted to see the inside of the ship?” she said, waving for Lena to climb the steps to go inside.

 

Lena was entranced as Kara explained the ins and outs of the propulsion systems and the waste disposal and other integral systems.

 

“It’s all so elegant. Where did you get this?” Lena asked.

 

“I bought it from a Ferengi trader. He had a pretty good trade going, too. I could take you to see him if you wanted to buy a ship to reverse-engineer,” Kara offered. “I wouldn’t go without someone extremely strong, though. The Ferengi are widely known for trickery and lies. I got a good deal on the ship because I was scary.”

 

“Good to know,” Lena said, tapping her lip on her finger as she studied the control panel of the ship. “I might take you up on that, one day.”

 

“Excellent,” Kara said. “Now, I should go put her back to bed at the DEO, and get back to my work.”

 

“Care to share what you’re working on?” Lena asked, tilting her head.

 

“Maybe once I have a working prototype,” Kara said slyly. “Wouldn’t want to tip off the competition.”

 

Lena shot her a glare before stepping forward, hugging Kara tightly.

 

“I’m so pleased you’re back home, safe.”

 

“I’m fine, Lena. There was never anything to worry about,” Kara said, patting Lena’s back awkwardly. Her whole body was screaming for Kara to pull Lena close, to feel Lena’s body fully against hers, to kiss her and make love to her until neither could move. She closed her eyes for a second before stepping back.

 

“It was good to see you again, Sam,” Kara said, holding out her hand.

 

“No handshakes once you’ve given me a huge-ass diamond,” Sam said, smiling. She pulled Kara in and gave her a tight hug.

 

Kara moved back after a moment, smiling at Sam and Lena.

 

“See you soon,” she said, backing away and sitting in the pilot’s chair. Lena and Sam took the hint and stepped out of the ship, climbing the few steps and backing away. Kara lifted off as gently as she was able, and shot over to the DEO in a matter of moments. She landed on the helipad neatly and hopped out. The helipad began to descend immediately, bringing the ship down to the hangar below, and another Helipad was pushed into its place by the mechanism below. It was an impressive piece of engineering, and Kara was more than proud that Alex had developed it. She made her way to the elevator, unaccompanied by trigger-happy agents, this time, and went down into the main area of the DEO.

 

Alex wasn’t there, having already left to see her wife and daughter. But J’onn had been waiting for her.

 

“How did you get on with our friends, the Resurians?” he asked.

 

“Very well, actually,” Kara said, sitting down on an office chair beside him. “They want to trade in future, and have confirmed they value loyalty and honesty. And the guy in charge knew my mother, so that made things a little easier.”

 

“That is good news,” J’onn said, smiling. “We might be needing some of their resources in future.”

 

“If we maintain a good relationship with them, I can’t see why we can’t have a good and profitable relationship with the Resurians. And their sun is… kind of strange,” Kara said. “It made me really strong, and I shot Alex with my heat vision accidentally. Instead of hurting her, it… it gave her my powers, temporarily.”

 

“Oh, wow,” J’onn said, looking stunned. “I have never heard of anything like that. I wonder what it would do for my powers?”

 

“Rao only knows,” Kara said. “But it might be interesting to find out. And to see how long it would take before the powers could stay in a human permanently.”

 

J’onn nodded, thinking.

 

“Anyway. I should go,” Kara said. “It’s been a long week. I have work to do on the tissue regenerator.”

 

“Get some rest, first, Kara. You look tired.”

 

Kara intended to sleep after eating a Kryptonian-sized meal, but she only managed the food before the DEO called her. Another huge warehouse fire. She landed beside the fire chief in her new suit, and nodded at him before asking what he needed her to do. She rescued seven people this time before putting the fire out with her freeze breath. This fire was from a burst gas main, so she grabbed some scrap metal from nearby and melted it with her heat vision to cover the jagged hole in the gas pipe. She smiled and waved at those taking pictures and shouting her name, before taking off into the air. She slept easily after that.

 


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara builds a prototype of her healing device, and meets an old enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there are some warnings in the tags that I hope you've all seen. This is the start of some difficult chapters - I cried writing some of it - and there is death coming up. One temporary, and later, one permanent. This chapter ends on a cliffhanger, so feel free to shout at me for being evil. Also, there's some self-harm in this chapter, for the purposes of demonstrating a healing device. Happy and safe reading.

 

* * *

 

The day after she returned from her trip with Alex, she finished her prototype tissue regenerator before lunchtime. She headed to the DEO, first, to try it out on some of the tissue samples at the DEO. They had human body parts along with those of aliens, all donated to science. She spent the rest of the day cutting into the severed ears and hands and feet of hundreds of species, and the tissue regenerator worked for every species except for a slime monster from the outer edge of the Milky Way. That wasn’t too much of an issue, she didn’t think, since it was almost impossible to damage the slime monster in the first place. Cutting into it had required her heat vision on full and a blade made from finely sharpened Nth metal.

 

She brought the device to Alex, finally.

 

“Hey, you,” she said, hugging her sister, who was blinking at her, looking confused. Alex had finished the birthing pod’s central processing chip, and was now working on some of the more intricate circuitry for the inside.

 

“Hey,” she replied. “Did the machine thing work, with the special metal?” she asked vaguely.

 

“It did,” Kara said. “Except on Slimer.”

 

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from that dude. I have no idea how we managed to kill it.”

 

“I’m not sure we did,” Kara said. “I think he might be in hibernation.”

 

“After the number of family pets he absorbed, that’s not unlikely,” Alex said, shuddering.

 

“Anyway. This thing works.”

 

“Okay. So?” Alex asked.

  
“Well, I thought the DEO might want to be my first customers,” Kara said.

 

“Well, that depends how well it works, I guess,” Alex said.

 

“Do you trust me?” Kara asked.

 

“Really? Aladdin?” Alex asked.

 

Kara shrugged. “I’m not sorry.”

 

“You should be,” Alex retorted. “But yes, I do trust you.”

 

“Okay. Would you cut your arm for me?” Kara asked, handing Alex a scalpel. “Not too deep. I don’t want you to be in too much pain.”

 

Alex sighed. “Okay, but if this goes horribly wrong, you’re explaining it to Maggie.”

 

Kara nodded. She wasn’t worried.

 

Alex cut into her forearm, a line about 4 inches long. It began to bleed profusely, and Kara realised that Alex had cut more deeply than she expected. She sighed, but then switched on the tissue regenerator. It scanned the wound and then started to repair the area, knitting the tissue back together. A minute or so later, the wound was closed.

 

Alex flexed the muscles in her forearms.

 

“Well, Kara. I’m pretty impressed. That works like a dream,” Alex said.

 

“Me too,” Kara said, breathing a sigh of relief. She reached above Alex’s head, switching on the red sun lamps, flooding the room with radiation that turned her essentially human. She took another scalpel and she cut her own wrist violently, right down to the bone.

 

“Shit, Kara! What are you doing?” Alex yelled. She picked up the regeneration device and switched it on.

 

Kara was breathing through her nose heavily, the pain ripping through her. It took two minutes, but by the time Alex was done with the device, Kara’s wrist looked as unmarked as it had before. Alex breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“Jesus, Kara. What the fuck was that?!” Alex demanded.

 

“Just had to make sure it would work on more extreme injuries,” Kara said, shrugging. “So, do you want this for the DEO? You could keep one on each mission. It should heal gunshot wounds, burns, anything that damages external tissue. Even radiation burns, though it won’t do anything for radiation poisoning.”

 

“I think we’ll be very interested, Kar. I just need to run it by J’onn. Do you have a plan for manufacturing?”

 

“I do,” Kara said. “There are a whole bunch of aliens out there looking for jobs. With a little capital from me and my investors, I think we could be up and running by the end of the month.”

 

“Okay,” Alex said, nodding. “I’ll speak to J’onn and let you know.”

 

“Okay,” Kara said, smiling. “I love you.”

 

“I love you too, Kar,” Alex said, kissing her on the cheek noisily. “I’m almost done with my part of the birthing chamber, by the way. I think we should have a working prototype by the end of the week. Anyone you want to have a kid with?” she joked.

 

Kara’s mind immediately went to Lena, and she grimaced.

 

“I’ll leave that honour to someone else,” Kara said. “Someone with the virus, right? That’s the point of this.”

 

Alex winced.

 

“Yeah. You’re right. I… I’m sorry, Kar,” she said. “I keep forgetting about you and Lena. I just… I can’t really reconcile you being here and you not being together. I thought she would have dumped Sam right away.”

 

“Well, she must love her, otherwise she would have broken it off,” Kara said, shrugging. “I can’t blame her. I did leave.”

 

“I know,” Alex said. “I know, but it sucks. She loves you, and I know she loves Sam too, but it’s not the same kind of love.”

 

“I’ll have to take your word for that. From my perspective, it seems like she loves Sam more than she ever loved me.”

 

Alex shook her head.

 

“I love you, sis.”

 

Kara blew her a kiss before taking off, returning to her apartment for food. She ordered some in, and sent a message to Lena telling her that her new product was ready if Lena wanted to see it. There was a knock at the door a little while later, and when Kara went to answer it, it was Lena, not her Thai delivery.

 

“Oh, hey,” she said, puzzled. “Did we have something arranged?”

 

“Um, no,” Lena said, biting her bottom lip. “But I wanted to see this product of yours. Anything you produce, Kara Zor-El, has to be pretty mind-blowing.”

 

“Okay,” Kara said, standing back and gesturing for Lena to come inside. She offered Lena a drink, and Lena asked for some wine. While she was filling the glass, she heard Lena exclaiming over the device on the table.

 

“You made this?” Lena asked, eyes wide.

 

“I did,” Kara said. “It’s a Kryptonian invention. I can’t take credit for inventing it, but I was able to find all of the components and assemble it from the schematics. No-one else on Earth could have; not unless they were fully conversant with Kryptonian mathematics and science.”

 

“So, what does it do?” Lena asked.

 

“You mean you can’t tell, Miss Engineering genius?” Kara teased.

 

Lena glared at her, and something low in Kara’s belly clenched. _Rao_ , she wanted Lena. She took a deep breath, then plastered a smile on her face.

 

“I’ll show you what it does,” she said, shooting into her bedroom and back, before sitting down. She had a lead box in her hand.

 

“You’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?” Lena asked, recognising the box.

 

“It’s kind of important for the demonstration,” Kara said. She took out a small piece of Kryptonite from the box, inhaling deeply as the radiation hit her, immediately making her feel sick. “I really need to get some red sun lamps,” she muttered. She took a small knife from her pocket, cutting deep into her palm – so deep that the bones of her hand showed through, clearly. She clenched her teeth against the pain.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Kara!” Lena said, grabbing Kara’s hand and putting pressure on the blood vessels in her wrist in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Kara lifted the tissue regenerator with her other hand and switched it on. It scanned the injury and then started to work with a quiet hum. The flesh knitted back together in front of their eyes, and Lena sat back, flabbergasted. A minute or so later Kara’s hand was completely unmarked, bar the bloody stains her injury left behind.

 

She turned to look at Lena, whose mouth was hanging open.

 

“You…”

 

“Yes?” Kara asked.

 

“You made a device that knits wounds back together in minutes.”

 

“I did. Like I said, it’s not my invention, but the plans are already filed with the patent office and Cat is doing some other important legal stuff to make sure no-one else can steal the idea,” Kara said.

 

“You went to Cat Grant with this and not to me?” Lena asked, outraged.

 

“I did,” Kara said. “I needed to do something with my time, and I didn’t want to return to journalism. And honestly, Lena, I needed to do something independent of you, given that you had already moved on. I didn’t mean anything by it. And you’re more than welcome to invest if that’s something you’re interested in. I’m planning to hire aliens to build the device, so that would be great press for LCorp.”

 

Lena studied her in silence for a long time before nodding.

 

“You are well within your rights to bring your invention to anyone you wish. And I can certainly understand needing to do something that doesn’t involve me. I’m sorry. It makes perfect sense. But I would love to invest, if you’re interested. Let me get Sam to call you – LCorp is her baby, after all.”

 

“Okay,” Kara agreed. Just then, her earpiece crackled. It was Vasquez.

 

“Supergirl, we have another huge fire at the docks,” Vasquez said. “Can you assist?”

 

“What is with these fires?” Kara groused. “I’ll be right there, Vas.”

 

She stood quickly and Lena sighed.

 

“I know that look. Go save the day, Supergirl,” Lena said. “And be careful, will you?”

 

“I’m always careful,” Kara said, spinning into her costume and shooting out the window. A minute or so later, she landed next to the Fire Chief – a different guy, this time. She asked him what he needed, and he confirmed that there were people trapped in a bunker underneath the building.

 

“Okay,” Kara said. “I’ll put out the fire first and then get the people out,” she confirmed.

 

He smiled at her slyly, and Kara was puzzled by it for a moment, but she took no more notice, carefully extinguishing the fire with her freeze breath and making sure it didn’t spread to the surrounding buildings. She x-rayed the area where the Fire Chief had indicated there was a bunker, finding that it was lined with lead. That wasn’t entirely unusual in older buildings that had been covered in lead paint. She sighed and went looking for an entrance. It was under a collapsed staircase. Kara moved it carefully and then pulled the hatch open, dropping down into the darkness below quietly.

 

It turned out that she owed Lena an apology. She hadn’t been careful, after all. She was hit from all sides with a number of tasers – the same tasers that Lillian Luthor had once used on Mon-El to capture him, but about 10 times more powerful. She blacked out for a few minutes, waking up strapped to a table under red sun lamps.

 

Alex was going to _kill_ her.

 

She was in her boy shorts and sports bra, her new suit nowhere to be found.

 

“Ah, Supergirl. So nice of you to join us. It’s so rude of you not to even say hello to an old friend,” a voice chided, lightly. It was a familiar voice, and Kara rolled her eyes.

 

“Lillian Luthor. I thought you’d finally crawled back under that rock you came from, but I guess I was mistaken, wasn’t I?” Kara said.

 

Lillian stepped closer, into Kara’s eyeline, and she was smiling sadistically.

 

“I have missed our witty repartée, Supergirl. You are such a delight to banter with.”

 

“I wish I could say the same, Lillian, but I’m afraid I was taught not to lie,” Kara said.

 

“Ooh, sick burn,” Lillian said, mockingly. “I learned that one from a friend’s daughter. I’ll be sure to teach it to your son when I capture him. I’ve always stuck to just capturing you before, Kara Zor-El, because your body is just so valuable to science. But now you have a son – my grandson, no less – and that means that I can get rid of you for good, because he’s going to be my new project. Lena will work with me in exchange for keeping him safe, and you’ll be long dead by the time my Superman rises. I’m renaming him Alexander, of course – none of your filthy Kryptonian names for my grandson.”

 

Kara gritted her teeth. She had to wait for her moment, so she wouldn’t rise to it. Arguing with Lillian was pointless.

 

She was waiting, watching, trying to see some sort of weakness, when Cyborg Superman – Hank Henshaw - entered the room. He took a look at her, sneering, and picked something up from inside a crate nearby. Something that glowed green.

 

“Oh, Rao,” Kara muttered.

 

“Indeed, you might wish to call on your god, Kara Zor-El, because I believe you’re about to meet him,” Lillian confirmed, grinning.

 

“We’ll have to see about that, won’t we,” Kara said. “You’re not going to take my son, Lillian. That much I can promise you.”

 

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to make promises you can’t keep?” Lillian asked, the same sinister smile on her face. She made a gesture at Hank Henshaw, and suddenly Kara was in horrible pain, and she felt a sharp something hit her in the chest, and her heart stuttered, once, and then stopped.

 

Kara was dead before Hank could remove the blade to stab her again.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex realises that there is more to Lillian's plan than just killing Kara, and Lena has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because I'm not as cruel as I pretend, here is the follow-up to yesterday's chapter. Warning - the other character death I spoke of happens here. I'm not including bad guys in that; they can suck it. Feel free to shout at me in the comments.

 

 

* * *

 

“Alex, I’m worried,” Lena said, holding the phone so tightly that she feared she would break it. “She always sends me a message when she gets back from a rescue. Have you heard from her at all?”

 

Alex muttered something, which Lena took to mean she should wait. The line went quiet, and a minute later Alex was back.

 

“She went to put out that fire in the Warehouse district last night, according to Vasquez. She put the fire out, and we haven’t heard from her since,” Alex said, sounding troubled.

 

“That’s not good,” Lena said. “Where was this fire?”

 

Another silence.

 

“Vasquez can’t find a record of a fire, now,” Alex said, sounding frightened.

 

“I’m going down there,” Lena said, already calling to Jess to get her helicopter ready to fly. Alex said she would meet her in the Warehouse district ASAP.

 

“Don’t do anything stupid, Lena,” Alex warned.

 

Lena swore under her breath, changing in her small bathroom from her office attire into more appropriate clothing and shoes for uneven terrain. She went quickly to the roof, calling Sam to tell her that Kara was missing.

 

“I’ll meet you there,” Sam said, hanging up.

 

Lena shook her head. What was it with her and idiotic Kryptonians and their hero complexes?

 

She got into the helicopter and told the pilot to take her to the Warehouse District, anywhere where there was a space big enough for them to land. The pilot nodded at her, frowning. They were there in a few minutes, and there was a space big enough for them to land where a warehouse had recently burned down. It had clearly been blown out with freeze breath, the stone scorched with the extreme cold as well as the fire.

 

Before they could properly touch down, Lena was jumping out. She must have mistaken the distance, because she found herself falling. She was caught in strong arms immediately, though, and she breathed Kara’s name gratefully before realising that her saviour was Sam.

 

“I think she’s in there,” Sam said, pointing at an open hatch nearby to the remains of a staircase. “It’s lined with lead.”

 

Lena nodded.

 

“Let’s go look.”

 

They made their way inside, Lena blinking to adjust to the darkness of the room below. There was suddenly enough light to see by, and she turned to see Sam’s eyes glowing with the threat of heat vision.

 

“Clever,” she said. Sam nodded tightly.

 

Lena was searching the room with her eyes when she saw a small table with a lumpy object on top.

 

“There,” she said, moving across the room quickly. Her first thought was that it couldn’t be Kara, because she wasn’t wearing her suit, but then she saw the familiar fall of blonde hair and the plain black boyshorts and sports bra that she used to tease Kara about wearing. Of course, they couldn’t let her keep her suit on because it would shield her from Kryptonite radiation. She froze, and Sam gripped her arm, pulling her back.

 

“There’s no heartbeat, Lena. There’s no heartbeat. You don’t want to see that, sweetheart,” Sam said, pulling Lena into her arms. Lena didn’t fight, or make a noise. She just stood still, and stayed that way, encircled in Sam’s arms, until Alex Danvers arrived a few minutes later. When Alex screamed, Lena fell to her knees, unable to hold herself up. Kara couldn’t be dead. Kara was home, safe. She’d been away for five years, and she made it home after being tortured for years. She couldn’t be dead.

 

She was still chanting that mantra to herself when they closed the zipper on the body bag.

 

***

 

Alex Danvers wasn’t stupid. She knew that Kara could die at any time. Just because she was mostly invincible didn’t mean she was completely invincible. She could die just like anyone else. But like this? It didn’t make sense. Why had Lillian suddenly crawled out of the woodwork, like the world’s most annoying cockroach? And why kill Kara now, when she’d had so many opportunities to do so in the past and hadn’t?

 

It took a while, but the reason suddenly popped into Alex’s head, and she stood up, dropping the blanket that J’onn had wrapped around her.

 

“Lena? Where’s Lena?” she yelled. She hadn’t seen Lena since the Warehouse.

 

“Her girlfriend took her back home,” Vasquez said, running to Alex’s side.

 

“We have to find her. Lillian’s after the kid,” Alex gasped. “There’s no other reason for her to kill Supergirl, unless she knows she has an unlimited supply of Kryptonian DNA from elsewhere.”

 

“Shit,” Vasquez said. “You need to get there. I’ll call Miss Luthor and try to warn her.”

 

“Okay,” Alex said. “I’m taking Kara’s ship to LCorp. It’s the fastest thing we have.”

 

Vasquez nodded, her eyes red and weary. “I’ll call you if I get a twenty on Miss Luthor and the kid.”

 

Alex nodded sharply and took the elevator to the hangar, opening the ship’s door and biting back a scream. Kara was dead. Kara was fucking dead, and here she was using her ship because it was the fastest craft they had. But Kara would want her to save Karl and Lena. She went to the control panel, glad that Kara had given her an in-depth tutorial on how to fly the small craft in case anything happened to her while they were getting their supplies from the Resurians.

 

She was out of the hangar and shooting across National City approximately 2.5 minutes later. Vasquez confirmed that Lena and Sam had picked up Karl and Ruby, Sam’s daughter, from school about an hour previous. They were at Lena’s penthouse. Alex landed on the roof of Lena’s building, running across and impatiently hitting the button for the elevator to take her to Lena’s floor. It felt like a million years, but the elevator appeared, finally, and she stepped out of it directly into the penthouse.

 

“Lena?” she called out. “Lena, where are you?”

 

She stepped forward and was immediately accosted by a man in full tactical gear. He was swinging a short blade at her. She dodged the hit and pulled her alien blaster from her holster, shooting him in the chest. It was a serious shock, but it wouldn’t kill him. She took out three more Cadmus agents the same way while calling Vasquez urgently for backup.

 

She stepped into the living room, finding the room in chaos. The furniture had been tossed in every direction, and there were unconscious or maybe dead Cadmus agents everywhere. She looked around in complete confusion. If she didn’t know better, she’d say Kara had beaten the shit out of those guys, but Kara was dead. She set her jaw as tears threatened, stepping down the corridor towards the bedrooms.

 

She checked Karl’s room and then Lena’s. Nothing. Then there was a crash from the adjacent room. Ruby’s, for when she stayed over. Alex crept out of Lena’s room, stepping carefully and sidling in the door of Ruby’s room.

 

It was trashed, too. The bed was upended, and Lillian Luthor and Hank Henshaw were both standing there, holding weapons on Lena and the two kids. In front of them, however, was a tall, gray-skinned woman wearing a black leather bra and trousers. Her eyes were black and she looked enraged. Alex took advantage of their inattention to slip the taser from Hank Henshaw’s belt and hit him with it. His cybernetic systems overloaded immediately, and he fell to the floor with a crash. Alex belatedly noticed that the cyborg was missing an arm – unfortunately for him, his biological one. The reason was clear immediately. The unidentified alien with grey skin was holding a dripping black sword.

 

Lena looked at Alex desperately.

 

“Are you okay?” Alex asked. Lillian had already stepped back a little, a gun in her hand. She was trying to keep everyone in the room in her sights. She looked… terrified.

 

“I’m fine,” Lena said, her voice trembling. “You remember Sam, right?”

 

Oh. _Oh._ Sam was the alien. She had red hair and she looked like she would happily flay Lillian alive and eat her whole.

 

“Sam? Sam? You remember me, right?” Alex asked, putting her gun back in the holster slowly. “Are you okay?”

 

“My name is Reign,” she said, her voice guttural.

 

“You’re protecting the children from Lillian, right?” Alex asked.

 

“She wants to hurt them. I cannot let that happen,” Sam growled.

 

“It won’t,” Alex promised. “I’m going to take Lillian into custody now, so she can’t hurt anyone else,” Alex said, moving her hands to the back of her belt for her handcuffs. She pulled them out.

 

“I am not going anywhere,” Lillian said, and Reign growled, the building trembling at the sound. Ruby and Karl were both shaking with terror.

 

“You will if you don’t want the nice lady to rip your spine out,” Alex said, pleasantly. For a moment, she thought Lillian was going to comply, but clearly she was wrong. Lillian aimed at Sam’s chest and fired. There was a flash of gold from the muzzle of the gun, and it hit Sam – Reign – right where a human’s heart was. Alex had no way of telling if her heart was in the same place, given that she had no idea what species the woman was, but she tried to move forward and help. Sam pushed Alex out of the way gently and grabbed Lillian, pulling the struggling woman along by the hair and into the other room.

 

“Keep them here. Keep them safe,” Sam/Reign said, blood dripping from her mouth. Alex nodded, closing the door behind her and moving to Lena and the kids quickly. “It’s okay, everyone. Lillian’s gone. Sam is going to make sure she goes to prison for trying to hurt you.”

 

Karl and Ruby threw themselves at Alex, sobbing. There was a wet ripping noise from the other room, which Alex tried to cover with a loud cough. She gathered the kids into her arms, astonished to find Lena burrowing into her shoulder, too.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Alex murmured, to all of them. “It’s going to be okay.”

 

***

 

When all fell silent, Alex stood, telling Lena to keep the kids in the room. She opened the door carefully and stepped out, her gun in her hand. She followed a trail of blood into Lena’s bedroom, finding parts of Lillian strewn around the room. She was a trained agent and an MD, and the sight nearly made her throw up. She looked carefully around the room, and found Sam collapsed on the floor on the other side of the bed. She looked like herself, again, albeit dressed like a motorcycle gang’s wet dream, but she was face down and she wasn’t breathing.

 

Alex turned her over, trying CPR, but each compression just caused the wound in Sam’s chest to bleed more, and Alex knew her heart had been perforated by the bullet. She would have to check it out later at the lab, but she suspected that it was gold Kryptonite, probably meant for Kara or Kal-El. So Sam must have been Kryptonian, at least in some way. She sighed, pulling a blanket from the closet and draping it over Sam’s body. She called Vasquez again and asked for a crime scene team to come and collect Lillian Luthor and Sam’s remains, and an assault team to take Hank Henshaw into custody. Maybe this time they could remove his implants and he could be put in a regular prison to rot for the rest of his life.

 

Alex led Lena and the kids out of the apartment and up to the roof, getting them all in the ship and flying directly to the DEO. She found an empty room and sat the kids down, getting them drinks and snacks, before taking Lena to a different room to break the news.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Alex began.

 

“They’re both dead,” Lena said, dully. It wasn’t a question.

 

“Yes,” Alex confirmed. “I think Lillian had gold kryptonite in that gun. It takes away a Kryptonian’s powers permanently, and it perforated Sam’s heart. There was nothing I could do. And as for Lillian… there’s not enough left for me to try to do anything. What the _hell_ was Sam? I had no idea she was an alien.”

 

Tears were running down Lena’s face. She shifted uncomfortably.

 

“As far as we knew, she was Kryptonian. She didn’t know, actually. Her powers started manifesting themselves only a few years ago, when Morgan Edge was attempting to destroy the waterfront. Something fell on Ruby, a cell tower I think, and Sam lifted it off by herself. After that she found she could fly, shoot heat from her eyes – the whole shebang. But that… whatever she became, today? I have no idea. She was terrified and angry – Lillian was threatening me and the kids – and then she just… changed, right in front of my eyes. Into that creature. She was trying to keep control but I could tell she was losing it. Then you showed up. You know the rest.”

 

“I do. Thank you, Lena. I’m so, so sorry.”

 

“Me too,” Lena said, fresh tears rolling down her face. Alex led her back to the room containing Ruby and Karl, and she went to find J’onn, to report to him what had happened.

 

It was a long afternoon. Clark called halfway through Alex’s debriefing, and she stepped outside to take it. Telling him about Kara’s death was the worst thing she had had to do in a long time. She was weeping when she returned to the briefing room, and J’onn held her until she had cried herself out. She had to tell Maggie and Laura, too, she knew, and Eliza. Eliza was going to be the worst. Kara had only just returned, and now…

 

Lena burst into the room.

 

“Where is Superman?” she demanded, her hair wild, eyes red.

 

“He’s in Metropolis,” Alex answered, puzzled. J’onn was staring at Lena, eyes wide.

 

“Alex, call him up here, now,” he said. He stepped out of the room, yelling orders, and Alex was confused.

 

“What’s going on?” she asked, lifting her phone to call Clark again.

 

“You have to do what you did for Clark. Take her – take them both, to the sun,” Lena said. “Give them a chance.”

 

Alex thought about it. There was little chance she could save Kara or Sam, as far as she knew, because their hearts were damaged. But if there was even a little chance…

 

“The Resurians,” she muttered. “The blue-white sun. It might be strong enough…”

 

“What?” Lena asked.

 

“The planet we went to, to pick up those metals and stuff,” Alex explained. “They had a blue-white giant as a sun. Lyra. It super-super-powered Kara. I think if we take her there, we might be able to save her.”

 

“And Sam?”

 

Alex shrugged helplessly.

 

“It’s possible, but I can’t promise anything.”

 

“Okay,” Lena said, nodding. “Let’s try, anyway.”

 

Alex called Clark, who promised to be there within the hour, ready for a trip of a week or longer. Alex went out into the main DEO, giving a patient Vasquez a series of orders. Within two hours, the ship was fully outfitted with enough food to feed three hungry Kryptonians (assuming they could be revived) and extra bunks and enough fuel to get them to Vega and back.

 

Alex found the blue stone that the Resurian elder had given to Kara, stored carefully in a compartment near the control panel. She looked at it thoughtfully.

 

“What’s that?” Lena asked. She was sitting in the co-pilot’s chair.

 

“It’s a communication stone. The Resurian elder – the guy Kara was trading with – he gave it to her so they could communicate telepathically. I’m not sure if I should try to use it or not.”

 

“I’m sure he’d appreciate the heads up about visitors,” Lena said, reasonably.

 

“Yeah. It’s just, I don’t speak Kryptonian or Resurian. And neither does anyone else,” Alex said, sighing.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” J’onn’s deep voice came from outside the ship. “Telepathic communication bypasses language. You communicate on a level other than speech.”

 

“Oh,” Alex said. “Thanks, J’onn.”

 

He came inside, then, holding one end of a body bag. Kara. On the other end was Winn, his eyes red. They set her body carefully on one of the bunks, before leaving and returning with Sam’s body.

 

“Thanks, you guys,” Alex said. She heard the familiar whooshing sound of a Kryptonian landing nearby, then. “Kal’s here. I’ll call you the minute we get back, Lena,” she said, wearily.

 

“No, you won’t,” Lena said, voice flat.

 

“You don’t want to know if they’re healed or not?” Alex asked, frowning.

 

“I’m coming with you, Alex. J’onn and Winn have agreed to look after Ruby and Karl. I’m coming with you. You have the two women I love most in the world inside this ship, and I’m going to see this through with you.”

 

Alex looked from Lena to J’onn, who shrugged.

 

“Okay,” she said. “But don’t blame me if you get bored of interstellar travel.”

 

Lena rolled her eyes.

 

Clark stepped inside the ship, then, his cape flapping behind him. The ship was suddenly very crowded, with three full-grown males standing up inside. Clark grabbed Alex’s hand and squeezed gently.

 

“I can’t believe this,” he said, eyes wide. They were red-rimmed. “She just got back, and she saved my life, and now she’s…” he trailed off.

 

“Me either,” Alex said. “We have to try to get her back.”

 

“Absolutely,” Clark said. “I will do anything I can to help.”

 

Lena nodded at him politely.

 

“You’re coming too, Miss Luthor?” he asked.

 

“I am,” Lena confirmed. “Kara is the mother of my child, and Sam… she was my fiancée. I have to be there.”

 

“I understand,” Clark said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

Lena nodded at him.

 

Alex couldn’t help but notice that Lena referred to Kara in the present tense, and Sam in the past tense. She wondered what Lena knew that she didn’t.

 

Alex made a quick call to Maggie, telling her that there was an emergency and she had to go off-planet for a week or so, but giving no other details. She asked J’onn to do a few rescues or fly-bys if he could, so that no-one – including Maggie, Laura and Eliza - had to know that Kara was dead.

 

Alex contacted the Resurian elder before they took off, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to communicate with him telepathically. She could feel his sorrow when she told him of Kara’s death, and his hope when she mentioned that she believed they might be able to cure her using the radiation from Lyra. He told her to come to his planet with all haste, and he and his people would be more than happy to help using their superior medical knowledge.

 

The journey was tedious, punctuated with tears and the occasional small argument over who was taking which bunk or what they could eat. The food was pretty gross, Alex had to agree, but she couldn’t have cared less at that point. She just wanted Kara to be alive and laughing with her about the horrible rehydrated breakfast foods, or Cat Grant’s latest outrageous burn of some idiot or another. She wanted her sister back, and every second of their journey chafed at her. She spent some of the time teaching both Kal and Lena how to fly the ship and how to calculate their way home, just in case she was somehow incapacitated. Other than that, there was little to do but eat, sleep, or pray.

 

It was the middle of the second day when they arrived in the Vega system. They arrived near Lyra, and the blue-white colour of the sun both startled and fascinated Alex. She had been more careful, this time, and Kal was wearing some Kryptonite jewellery – just enough to keep his powers at a normal level.

 

“Last time I was here, Kara blasted me with her heat vision accidentally when we arrived in the system, and I had her powers for days,” Alex said, chuckling.

 

“What, like you stole them?” Lena asked.

 

“No. She still had her powers – in fact, she was much more powerful than normal. But her heat vision basically made me Kryptonian, I guess, for a few days,” Alex explained.

 

“How on Earth does that work?” Lena wondered, her eyes wide.

 

Alex shrugged.

 

“I’m not enough of an expert on solar radiation to be able to work it out. But Kara did think that, given long enough under a sun this colour, she would be able to give someone powers that stayed.”

 

“Wow,” Lena and Clark said, simultaneously.

 

“Yeah,” Alex agreed.

 

They stopped in orbit of Resa 4 so that Alex could double-check that they were welcome. The old dude urged them to land, so land they did.

 

Alex stepped out of the ship, Lena on her heels, to find the Resurian elder waiting for them, surrounded by his smaller subordinates.

 

He clicked at her, lifting the blue jewel with his foreleg, and Alex started. She pulled her jewel from her pocket, holding it while thinking of him.

 

“Bring the El child,” he said. “We will help her.”

 

“Thank you, honoured sir,” she said, bowing from the waist. “We have another Kryptonian. She may not be able to be helped, but her mate wishes to try,” Alex explained.

 

“Very well, human. We will do what we can.”

 

Alex stepped back inside, lifting Kara’s body from the bunk carefully. Her weight was staggering, and she was relieved when Lena took the other side of the bag, taking some of the weight. Kal followed them and lifted Sam’s body in his arms. They stepped out of the ship and the Resurian gestured for them to follow him into the huge building in front of them.

 

Alex was huffing and puffing by the time the elder gestured for them to put Kara’s body on a low table. There were lamps above the table that had to be sun lamps, Alex assumed. Kal put Sam’s body down on another low table next to Kara’s.

 

The littler Resu pulled open the body bags, sliding the bodies free. They had not yet started decomposing – the body bags were a DEO invention, designed to hold bodies in stasis for weeks at a time.

 

The Resurian elder held up the blue stone again. Alex held hers, thinking of him once again.

 

“This one was not of Krypton,” he said, indicating Sam. “Or not only of Krypton. She was an aberration, an invention borne of violence and hatred. She held within her the power to destroy worlds. We cannot revive her. The projectile that ended her life was of a compound that we cannot counteract. Nor would we, if we could. She was important to you?” he asked.

 

“She was the mate of my friend, here. She was normal until her child was threatened, and then she changed into this.”

 

“The Worldkillers have certain triggers. Fear, rage, protecting those they love. Once they are activated, who they were is destroyed. She would have destroyed your planet and all of your people,” the Resurian explained. “I am sorry for the loss, but we cannot help her.”

 

“Thank you for trying, elder,” Alex said, bowing slightly.

 

“The daughter of El called me Hass. You may do so, too, Al-Ex.”

 

She bowed again, turning to Lena.

 

“I’m sorry, Lena. They can’t help Sam. The gold kryptonite – they don’t have any way to counteract it,” Alex said.

 

Lena nodded, eyes streaming. She looked at Sam – Reign – sadly.

 

“That’s not all of it,” she said, flatly. “What else did he say?”

 

Alex sighed. Lena was too damn smart for her own good.

 

“He said that Sam was some sort of a created being. Her purpose was to destroy worlds. He said that once she was activated, she would have been unstoppable, and she would have destroyed the Earth. He said that even if he had the power to bring her back, he wouldn’t. I’m so sorry, Lena.”

 

“It’s okay,” Lena said. “I knew it was a long shot. And I had to try, for Ruby’s sake.”

 

“Is Ruby Sam’s biological child?” Alex asked, now worried as to what Ruby might become.

 

“No,” Lena said, shaking her head. “She was a human orphan. Sam adopted her at 6 months.”

 

“Okay,” Alex said, sighing in relief. “I’m so sorry,” she said, her heart breaking for Lena.

 

“It’s okay,” Lena said. She ducked down and kissed the forehead of the woman who had once been Sam, and then she stepped back.

 

Hass gestured for Alex to hold the jewel again.

 

“This man bears the crest of El. Is he the other Kryptonian the daughter of Alura mentioned?”

 

“He is,” Alex confirmed.

 

“Pass the jewel to him, please, Al-Ex,” he said.

 

Alex nodded, passing it to Kal and explaining what was happening. Kal went quiet, concentrating. A moment later he sat on a nearby chair, messing with the zipper of his suit and pulling one arm out. The Resurians bustled around him, taking blood and tissue samples, and then they began working on Kara’s lifeless body. First they flipped a switch, turning the whole room into a huge blue-white sun chamber. Alex had to shield her eyes because of the fierce heat and brightness. Then they were scanning Kara and using various hand-held devices to clean and close the huge wound in her chest.

 

“That’s the regen device that Kara’s been working on,” Alex realised, thinking out loud.

 

“She showed it to me,” Lena said. “Just before she went off to put out that fire. I was amazed. I still am.”

 

“Me too,” Alex agreed. “She’s so incredible.”

 

Lena hummed in agreement. They sat down nearby, watching with interest and a little too much hope as Hass and his people worked on Kara, attaching her to a variety of machines. Hass turned to communicate with Kal, who was still holding the blue stone. He nodded and bowed.

 

“Guys, we’re being sent away to eat and sleep,” Clark said. “We have to follow this guy.”

 

Alex and Lena stood wearily, and followed Clark and the tiny Resurian to a nearby room which had several beds and a table and chairs in it. It was smaller than they were used to, but it was covered with food and they all ate as much as they could stomach before lying down. Clark took one bed, and Alex and Lena shared the other – not through necessity, but for comfort. They hugged each other and fell asleep, both praying that Kara would rise from the dead under this strange star.


End file.
